You Don't Hear the Bullet
by Makori
Summary: SPOILERS After the Battle of the Citadel, Tali and Shepard finally get some time to discover themselves...and each other. But can they make this work? Will they live to even have the chance?
1. Prologue

**You Don't Hear the Bullet**

The Normandy was, on one of the rarest of occasions, quiet. Not like the quiet where she could run smoother than any other ship in the Alliance Fleet, as Tali had noticed, but the quiet where there was no one aboard. Not a soul. Even Joker had hobbled out on his leg braces and crutches, griping and bitching every inch of the way, to celebrate their victory over the sociopath Saren and the Reaper Sovereign. Now, there was only Tali and Commander Shepard himself, both still recovering from serious injury. She could still remember every detail, having been one of Shepard's squad to fight in the final battle.

_It started with a simple request. Tali had been down in the Engine Room, studying the various consoles alongside Adams, as usual, preparing for their attack on Ilos. No one had actually seen Shepard since he'd gruffly given Joker the coordinates of the Mu Relay and walked off to his quarters, not even bothering to check on the rest of the crew, as was his custom. _

_The former Marine lived by a strange concept. Out in the field, he was the cruelest, most ruthless sonofabitch you could imagine, sometimes having to be convinced not to shoot people he thought should die for their involvement in Saren's work. However, on the ship, he was the most caring, enigmatic person anyone could hope for a captain to be and more. However, this time he had holed himself up in his quarters, and he obviously wasn't coming out. He'd heard the gunfire outside the Normandy, he'd realized what that meant: Captain Anderson had indeed succeeded in getting the Normandy airborne again, but he'd been caught and injured, possibly killed in the process. Of course, that normally wouldn't have mattered to Shepard, but according to the stories Tali had heard about him, he was a completely different person now than he was then. _

_Caught up in her thoughts, Tali didn't hear the door open, didn't hear Adams turn around, then salute, didn't realize he was standing right behind her until his rough voice said her name. _

_"Tali?" _

_She snapped up straight, startled, and turned to see him, Commander Shepard, tall and red-haired, standing right behind her, an unreadable expression on his face. _

_"Shepard! I'm sorry, I didn't hear you come in, I…I was studying the drive core and I'm afraid I got caught up in my thoughts." _

_Shepard smiled, slightly, nodding and saying "I know what that's like. Too often have I been spooked because I was studying the map." _

_She relaxed, slightly, as she always seemed to in his presence. Somehow, he always seemed to have that effect on her. _

_He cut the small talk and got straight to what he was trying to say. "Listen, Tali, Joker just called and said we should be getting to the Mu Relay sometime in the next sixteen hours or so. In order to cut down on time, I decided to go around and make my ground team right now. You haven't seen much action yet, have you?" _

_Tali shook her head, wondering where he was going with this. "Just Feros. Although, I'll admit, the chance to kill a few of those Geth bastards was most satisfying." _

_Shepard nodded, smiling a little. She'd told him a lot about the history of the quarians, and he understood her eagerness to strike out at the synthetic soldiers. _

_"That's what I thought. Since Liara thinks we might be dealing with Prothean technology on Ilos as well as Geth, I thought it might be a good idea to bring a skilled engineer along. And of course, you were the first one to pop into my head." _

_"Me?"_

_If quarians could blush, something their bluish skin just could not do, Tali supposed she might be rose red by now. _

_"W-why me?" _

_Shepard smiled lightly, as if he found something amusing about the situation. "Isn't it obvious? You're the best damn expert on alien, and human, technology we've got. Adams told me how impressed he was by your knowledge of the ship's workings. Hell, when I talked to you about it myself, __I__ was impressed." _

_"Y-you were?" _

_What was wrong with her? Usually, she was confident in herself, even in the face of all pervading death. Although, there had been that one time when she had gone slack-jawed at the sight of the Thorian on Feros while Shepard declared nothing ever simple and then remarked about their need for greater firepower. But now, she was as unsure of herself as she ever had been, even when she had first left the Migrant Fleet on her Pilgrimage. _

_Shepard chuckled again and replied "Of course! Hell, I couldn't even keep up with half of what you were saying until I consulted Adams. I'm a soldier, I don't know any of this mumbo-jumbo." _

_Realizing that Shepard was, in fact, relating one of his weaknesses in a simple passing comment, Tali blinked in surprise. Shepard did whatever was possible to cover up a disability, whether he wasn't too good with a weapon, such as his assault rifle, or he was seriously wounded and needed to be held down in cover, he never accepted a handicap, never gave himself a time-out. In fact, now that she looked closer, Tali could see the bags beginning to form under his eyes, proof of how hard he had worked to save this galaxy. And, in realizing that Shepard was just as human as everyone else on board, figuratively speaking, she felt a little more confidence seeping back into her, and she stood up a little straighter, declaring, proudly, "It'll be my pleasure to help you on this mission, Shepard!"_

Remembering these moments brought a smile to Tali's face, hidden under her visor. She was currently leaning against the bulkhead in the mess, trying to figure out what had happened to the last of the coffee. Somehow, the Navy brew had been drained before the crew had been dismissed to go 'ashore.'

That aside, she suddenly felt this urge…no, this need, to go and talk to Shepard himself. Of course, Doctor Chakwas was aboard every now and then, but neither Shepard nor Tali had been that seriously wounded.

As she limped towards Shepard's quarters, the memory filtered back into her head.

_Shepard looked back over his shoulder, blood trickling past his eye from the cut on his forehead, dripping down onto his armor in a crimson trail. His helmet had been knocked off by a lucky shot from one of Saren's explosives, but that hadn't assisted the turian in the slightest, as Shepard's next shotgun blast had blown him off his hover platform, which somehow had already been waiting for him when he'd leapt down. _

_Saren's body lay where the turian had fallen, a large piece of glass spearing him through the belly, pinning him to the ground. Black blood was already pooling around his fallen form, staining the grass around him. Shepard looked like he was about to spit down at the turian, but instead he contented himself with turning back to Tali and Garrus, both of whom stood at the ready, and told them, venomously, "Go make sure that sonofabitch is dead." _

_Garrus and Tali both nodded and started for the gap. Tali herself was the first one down, and relished in pulling her pistol out, getting close to the dead sociopath and planting a hammerhead round right between his eyes. Garrus turned away, fingering his radio and confirming "He's dead." _

_Up top, Shepard nodded to himself, then turned away, content that the crisis they had been facing for so long was almost over, when all of a sudden, a rumble hit the Citadel, and the platform he was on cracked and collapsed, taking the Spectre down with it. _

_A bright flash, a few high pitch scream-like sounds later, and Saren's corpse had been reanimated into a grisly synthetic nightmare, controlled by the implants Sovereign had put in him. Tali struggled to her feet, spotting Garrus do the same, but Shepard was having trouble. His left arm hung limply at his side as he pushed himself off the ground, reaching for his shotgun. When he fell over because of that small action, he roared, not in anger this time, but in pain, and tossed a poorly-aimed grenade at Saren, whose mechanical skeleton easily dodged it. It attached itself to a wall, focusing on the three being in front of it before using Saren's voice box to relay a message from the mechanical horror attached to the top of the tower. _

_**"I am Sovereign. And this station is **__**mine.**__**"**_

_ The utter conviction with which it was said seemed to close down any banter at all. Shepard, having finally gotten to his feet, didn't care, finally pulling out his shotgun and loosing a polonium blast in Saren's direction, accompanied by a storm of profanity, setting the thing's shields aglow. _

_"Garrus, start shooting, dammit! Tali, covering fire, anytime now!" _

_Garrus nodded an affirmation, swapping his sniper rifle for the assault rifle and firing a burst of armor piercing rounds, but the thing had already moved, and Tali tracked it with her own shotgun, firing a load of incendiary rounds that caught the thing in midair. _

_It took a long time, but they finally wore down the synthetic's shields enough to actually inflict damage. However, seeming to sense that it was now vulnerable, Sovereign's puppet now started firing explosives. One of them nearly hit Tali, still having enough punch, however, to knock her over. It must have done much more than that, however, as when she tried to get up again, her leg would not hold her. In the background, she heard the drum roll of Garrus' assault rifle providing covering fire, then the loud thud of Shepard's shotgun. _

_And suddenly, there he was, right next to her, firing another blast at Saren before turning back to her and yelling, over the gunfire and explosions, "Tali! You okay?" _

_Tali nodded, managing, with Shepard's help, to sit up, and turned her own weapon toward Saren, pulling the trigger once more. It wasn't very well aimed, but shotguns were made for that sort of thing. Somehow, she'd managed to fire just as Saren's skeleton was leaping right at her, blasting it right in the face. It must have done the trick, however, as Saren flipped over backwards in midair before falling to the ground and beginning to dissipate. _

_There was no laughter, no cheering like usually happened after large battle. Garrus looked down at his gun, so thoroughly overheated that the barrel had melted and ruined the assault rifle, and threw it down by Saren's remains, spitting before exclaiming "Tough old sonofabitch."_

She almost ran into the door itself. That always seemed to happen to her. She'd get so caught up in her thoughts that she wouldn't pay attention to her surroundings. This time, however, she'd managed to save herself.

Shaking various distractions from her head, Tali palmed the intercom button linking the commander's quarters with the outside, in case the commander had the door locked and someone wanted to get in.

"Commander?"

Maybe this was a bad idea. He might be asleep, after all.

But, as if to laugh at her fears, the speaker came to life, and Shepard's gruff voice responded "Yeah, Tali, what's up?"

Tali swallowed in nervousness, but then calmed herself down. All she was looking for was some good conversation. "Mind if I come in? I'm rather bored, and I don't feel like going over my notes for the billionth time."

A truth to cover a lie. She had indeed gone over her notes on the Tantalus drive core and other key functions of the Normandy several times, but she could never grow tired of it. Shepard must know that, must consider it odd. But, once again, as if to laugh at her fears, reality happened.

"Sure, just a sec."

A few seconds later, she heard the lock on the door disengage, and it slid open, allowing her to limp inside. And there he sat, at his computer, typing away at some report or another, which, for some reason he suspiciously closed almost as soon as she walked in. He was dressed in his blue ship fatigues, save for the fact that the upper part had been unzipped and was now tied around his waist. He was wearing a thin white shirt that she remembered the humans called 'tank tops.' His left arm was in a cast and a sling, hanging over his chest in its blue cloth cradle.

Shepard stood and turned to her, looking quite tired. Tali had never thought she'd see the powerful Spectre look so weak as he was right now.

"Tired?" she asked. He gestured feebly to his sling, commenting "Hurts like a bitch. Can't get any sleep. I suppose lack of rest'll catch up with me sooner or later, though, and I'll get the forty winks I'll need." He nodded to her. "What about you? That explosion could have ripped you apart if it had been two feet further to the left."

"Don't remind me." She shivered, wishing she could forget how close she'd come to death. She looked back up at him, a thought occurring to her. "There's a myth among you humans, I believe. How does it go?" She pondered a little, grateful for the distraction that kept her mind off the red-headed former marine in front of her. Finally, she remembered it and said "Ah yes. I think it's 'you always hear the bullets.'"

Shepard chuckled before replying "Actually, it's 'You hear the bullet before you die.' I don't actually believe it myself though."

"Really? What about that old saw I heard you tell Williams that one time? About there being no atheists in a foxhole? I think you've been in a lot of foxholes."

Shepard chuckled again, responding "Yes, yes, you heard correctly. That, however, is religion, not personal beliefs. My family was Christian, they believed in God and Jesus Christ. I believe in them too, but I'm not as religious as they were."

Tali cocked her head to the side in curiosity. Shepard never spoke of his family, ever. Not even when she told him about hers.

"Really? What were they like?"

Shepard took a half breath before waving it off and saying "Never mind, it's a long story-"

"Then start talking. We've got plenty of time. I hardly know anything about you Shepard, and you know almost everything about me. To quarians, to give and never receive is one of the most insulting gestures possible."

She was grinning under her helmet, and although it was impossible for him to see it, she could tell that he knew it was there.

Shepard sighed and replied "Alright, take a seat. But I warned you." She nodded, leaning against the desk as he sat down on his bed and started with "I was born on Mindoir, one of humanity's most profitable colonies. We didn't have much, of course, but the rich farmland, the plentiful mining, the clear water and full oceans…ah, it was almost a paradise, like Eden Prime." She could tell that was no longer his opinion now. And, a second later, he confirmed it. "Not anymore, though. Now, the seas are polluted, the farmland has been hit by artillery, the mines gutted…it's almost like Earth, except no one's there anymore. We got wiped out when the batarians started hit-and-running us."

"I heard about that. And how they were stopped during the Skyllian Blitz."

Shepard nodded. "I wish I'd been there. I'd grown up on Mindoir, come to love everything about it, had a loving family, a bright future in farming ahead of me. Then, the batarians came. We tried to fight, but we were civilians, we weren't equipped to deal with an entire invasion. The best we had were shotguns, maybe a few assault rifles for the militia."

Tali shook her head and pointed out "You haven't said a word about your family yet."

Shepard nodded, responding "I was building up to that. My family were farmers. We were part of this colonizing plan to sell large amounts of land to construction companies for homes. Of course, my father saw the smarts in buying cheap land for farming. 'What happens when you've built everything you can on that one spot of land? Then you've got nothing left to build on, that's what!'" Shepard chuckled, smiling to himself as he stared at the floor, remembering. "That was one of his favorite answers to my questions of why we became farmers. I remember asking a lot of questions, such as how most of the machines worked, why people existed in the first place, all that sort of stuff. He wasn't highly educated, he didn't know most of it. So, he either made up an answer, or he told me to go ask my mother."

And now, he tipped his head back, his eyes starting to become wet. Tali suddenly found herself very concerned for him, and said, quietly "If you don't want to talk about it, I-"

"No," muttered Shepard, wiping his eyes before continuing "No. I haven't talked to anyone about it. No one. I need to get it off my chest."

It put Tali off, to see the normally steel strong commander so pitiful before her. He was like a suit of armor, strong on the outside, hollow within. Well, maybe not the best of metaphors, but it made sense to her…sort of.

When Shepard was finally ready to keep going, he said "My mom. Wow, what a woman. I don't think I've met someone so devoted before. She was a lawyer before she met my father. Said she was swept up by his 'down-to-earth charm.' Found herself whisked away from her practice on Earth out to a new colony on a brand-new planet with a back country man who didn't know higher math than geometry. Still, she never complained. Never said anything bad about my dad. In fact, she seemed to mold to the farming lifestyle pretty well. She'd get up with him at dawn and ride out on the harvesters with him to work the fields alongside him. And she always had a smile on her face. I always loved that about her."

A single tear ran down Shepard's cheek, but if he noticed he didn't care. Tali had to admit she was shell-shocked now. Having come in here for plain conversation to simply halt her boredom, she had not expected to be the confessor to Shepard's past. Sure, she had a few bad things happen to her, but they were nothing to break down about. To have something like this bottled up inside you…he must've been emotionally torn.

Skipping over the details of the attack on Mindoir itself, she recalled something she'd heard, a rumor. "What about Torfan?"

Shepard's head slowly came back around to look her in, what he assumed to be the general area of her eyes. "So, you heard about that too, huh? Well, maybe it's for the best. Yeah, I was a soldier on Torfan. We damn near lost the regiment there. Soon as we came into range of the guns, the sergeant went down, and I had to cover for him. Then the drop ship went down, hard, got us into the tunnel entrance. We got cut off, but we got inside, had to fight our way through the batarians bastards, and we didn't even have enough guns. Even so, we didn't have the guns we do today. We didn't have mass accelerated bullets and no issues about ammo. Just powder and lead. And those didn't last long. I don't know what happened. I just suddenly snapped, I recall, and started smashing away at them with a sledgehammer I found. I think…"

Here he paused, as if trying to remember something long forgotten. Finally, he said "I think I was trying to pay them back, every inch, every second, for what happened to my home. My parents. My life." He closed his eyes and ran his right hand over a small scar on his chin, under the reddish stubble.

And that's when Tali felt it once more. That undying need to go and comfort him, put her arms around him and help him through this. And she knew what that was: a strong, steady affection for the tough soldier who right now was ready to break down and cry like a five-year old. Without even realizing what she was doing, she was up and moving, then sitting down next to him, wrapping her arm around his shoulders…and he just broke. Suddenly, he was weeping on her shoulder, stammering "God, you s-should've seen it, T-Tali. My dad…Mom…God, the artillery ripped them apart. A-And the boys on Torfan…God, most of them w-weren't even out of their t-teens yet. All d-dead."

She held on to him, not saying a word. He'd kept his eyes clear for years about this, and now he was venting his emotions all at once. Anything she said at this point would simply kill the moment.

He cried for a half-hour, every now and then bringing up a certain person, be it his mother, father or one of his squad mates. Finally, he sat up, wiping his red eyes dry before turning to her, a small, sad smile on his face, and whispering "Thanks. And sorry."

Tali nodded, a smile on her lips under her visor. "Anytime. And…for what?"

Shepard chuckled again, though it was more of a forced laugh than anything else. "For having to baby-sit me. Bad enough you had to listen to me become nostalgic and weepy, but-"

He suddenly found his lips obscured by a finger. Tali shook her head slowly, saying "Shepard. You need to realize by now, if I wasn't here for you, I wouldn't be here at all."

Shepard chuckled again, but genuinely this time. "Heh. That's a lie. You love this ship."

And, before she knew what she was doing, Tali smiled under her visor and replied "Not as much as you."

Shepard's smile slowly slid off his face, and he even more slowly, brought his head around to face her, an unreadable look on his face.

_"Oh no, I said that out loud, didn't I?" _she realized, horror-struck.

Slowly, she slid her arm off of Shepard's shoulders before rising to her feet and limping for the door, muttering "I'll just go now."

"Tali, wait!"

And suddenly, he was there, his hand on her arm. She froze, afraid of what he would do to her. And then he asked her the last thing she was expecting.

"Tali…how do the quarians show…affection?"


	2. I Heard That One

(A/N: Bam! Just because...JUST because of all the favorite stories and alerts I've seen tacked on to this single story...I'm reviving it! And continuing it! Please, keep submitting your reviews, your ideas, everything! What you love, what you hate, I'm taking it all now! Although, if you go ahead and simply flame me without explaining why, or make a half-assed criticism, I will simply take it and heat my boiling pot of ideas.

Enjoy!)

**You Don't Hear the Bullet**

**I Heard That One**

**The Normandy**

**Three Months Later**

Clink.

Clink.

Clink.

Clink.

Over and over again, the old coin hit the desk at just the right angle to bounce up, spinning around and reflecting the light back up at Shepard as he lazily toyed with the piece of currency. A gift from his father, a rare piece nowadays. The golden dollar, it was called. An American coin, something seen not all that often even two-hundred years ago. Though it was worn and dull now, it had once shined like a star, and even though it wasn't really gold, he still valued it as such.

He caught the coin, turning it over in between his fingers, head cocked to the side as he studied it for what seemed to be the millionth time. He never polished it. Ever. To do so would be like scrubbing away all the memories he had of the farm, and of his parents, and the hab-unit that constituted their small home. He'd never forget Mindoir, that was a fact, but he was still unwilling to shine the coin.

He sighed, setting the golden dollar down onto the desk as he turned to peer down at the latest scans. Days in this one system alone, and for what? Nothing, that's what.

Another unexpected side effect of all this free time, however, was that his mind was apt to wander. And, as it always did, he thought back to his triumphs…his mistakes…

_Torfan hung before them, bright, beautiful, like a pearl in the oily blackness of the deep oceans back on Earth. The ice moon held a deadly secret at its core, however, one quite invisible to the naked eye and far more dangerous than deep-sea diving._

"_There is –no- doubt about it, El-Tee," said the shuttle's copilot as the landing craft slid into position in the bay of the Twelfth Fleet Cruiser, the __Los Angeles__, awaiting deployment. "-That- is one huge goddamn hidden base."_

_Shepard leaned in, squinting at the readouts as he did so. He didn't pretend to understand 'tech-crap mumbo-jumbo' as he affectionately called half the advanced systems the marines ran across, but one could read a surface-scan, ground-penetrating ladar readout easily enough._

_The pirate base was deep underground, with only a few access tunnels, and they were all protected by thick, reinforced doors. Kenneth Shepard frowned as he realized something, however._

_He pointed at the screen saying "I don't see any long-range defense systems in there."_

"_Well, of course not. There's no way we can scan inside the base itself right now, the batarians lined the damn walls with EM shielding."_

"_So we're flying in blind?"_

"_Pretty much yeah-"_

_The copilot didn't get anything more than that, however, as a streak of light suddenly shot up from the planet's surface, smashing into the hull of the __Los Angeles__, detonating with a force equivalent of the Hiroshima bomb. The shuttle was jerked loose from the moorings as the cruiser began to fold in on itself, imploding and violently venting atmosphere. "Mayday, mayday! I say again, mayday! The __CSV Los Angeles__ is hit and going down, repeat, we are going-"_

_The comms was suddenly cut, however, as the ship –did- explode now, catastrophically, sending the shuttle reeling away, flipping end over end in empty space, rocketing down towards Torfan…_

He was, thankfully, snapped out of his thoughts by an electronic ding. His eyes rose from the coin in his hand, up to his private console, before his head swerved around to the door. Normally, the crew knew not to disturb their captain when he had sealed himself away. If he wasn't to be found out on the deck with the rest of them, then he well and truly wished to be left alone.

This, however, was a welcome interruption. He needed something to break him out of his trip down memory lane, and Kenneth had a feeling he knew who it was.

"Come in," he called, setting the golden dollar down reverently before turning to address the intruder.

As he had suspected, and was delightful to have it confirmed, the resident Quarian aboard the _Normandy_stepped in, her strides more confident than the last two times she had been to see him.

She cocked her head to the side almost teasingly, and even though the visor blocked his view, Shepard suspected there was a smug smirk under there.

"Getting a little too trusting now, aren't we?"

The Spectre shrugged, taking on an expression of mock ignorance.

"I have no clue what you're talking about."

"I could have been anyone at all, yet you go ahead and take the chance and let me in before you confirm it. You didn't used to be this careless."

Shepard feigned a chest injury with extra drama as Tali crossed over to him.

"Ah! I am –forever- wounded! How will I recover?!"

His reward was a light smack on the leg.

"You big baby. Seriously, though, it's good to see you've lightened up so much."

"Tali, enough with the insults."

She laughed again, and the light, visible glow of her eyes that he could see through her helmet slimmed, saying that she was scrunching up her face in amusement.

"Seriously, Ken! You've got to stop that. I may have to add on an extra rebreather just to live with your jokes."

Shepard shrugged.

"Eh, just one of my many gifts."

"What, levity?"

"No, weeding out those with no humor."

She doubled over again, holding up a hand to stem the tide. No one was quite sure why exactly Commander Shepard, ruthless Spectre, kickass N7 elite was in such a good mood lately, but many suspected it may have had something to do with Tali's periodic visits to his quarters. Of course, Joker was quick to spread rumors, but since his security cameras didn't cover the Captain's Quarters, he wasn't sure of anything.

Needless to say, Tali and Kenneth's relationship hadn't gone anywhere physically past intimate hugs, the occasional pinch and follow-up return slap, and GASP! cuddling.

That's right. Kenneth Shepard cuddled with Tali.

All levity aside, however, these visits they did, her to his quarters and he to the engine room, gave them the opportunity to talk a lot about themselves, each other, problems in the galaxy, ideas, dreams…everything you'd expect a couple to talk about.

But Shepard couldn't help feeling a little…dissatisfied. It shamed him a little that he was feeling so impatient to simply give in to his instincts and hormones, like some wild animal, but held himself in tight check around Tali. After all, according to her, a Quarian could hardly ever even leave their bio-suit aboard the Migrant Fleet, much less outside it. And, apparently, to do so was seen as the most intimate act between two people.

Of course, when she had boiled down all the limits and whatnot to him that night in the Citadel Alliance docking bay, she'd made sure to spell that out for him right away.

She jokingly referred to it as the night he had 'proposed,' much to his chagrin. She teased him about it all the time...

"_Seriously, you sounded so nervous! And you spoke so informally! 'How do Quarians show affection?' Is that your way of asking a girl out?"_

Finally, however, there was the point where the humor simmered down between them as they finally addressed the problems both had. Either current or in the past.

Call it exorcising demons.

"I have to agree with Pressly, actually. Slavers are far more likely to be in this sector than geth are."

Tali's head cocked back the other way, and almost instantly, Shepard could picture a frown or a raised eyebrow on her face.

"So why are we here?"

Ken shook his head, the coin returning to his hand once more, flipping it between his fingers as he tried to sum up a response. Why were they floating out on what felt like the most pointless mission the Council had decided to assign them?

"Because there's really nothing, is there? Face it, Tali. They don't believe me. Even after all I've done, they still don't take me seriously."

"I would think they took you seriously enough when you carried their lives in your hands."

A light chuckle, but all the humor had been quickly sucked out of this situation.

"Look, we both know the geth aren't the real threat. It's hardly even a war now. More like we go out and hit them and they're far too disorganized to mount their own offensive."

Granted, the geth were still able to swiftly and efficiently butcher an overconfident opponent with their cold, calculating lethal efficiency and brutal gauss weapons, but a coordinated geth attack hadn't hit them in weeks.

"Ken, I wouldn't get too complacent if I were you. After all, these are –geth- we're talking about."

Shepard sighed, nodding to recognize Tali's good point. You could never keep an artificial intelligence confused for very long. Grouped together again as they were, and still producing more and more platforms, the geth were starting to reach the come-around point where they got organized again.

Before he could make a verbal response, however, the _Normandy_ shuddered violently, veering and swerving to the side.

"_Brace for evasive maneuvers!"_

Shepard's reply, mostly consisting of curses and threats as to what he would do with the pilot's legs once he got his hands around Joker's throat, was lost in a flurry of waving limbs, flying chairs and smacking against the bulkheads.

The _Normandy_ shuddered again, and Shepard could hear an almighty tearing ringing through the metals, a sound that sent chills down his spine. He knew that noise, he'd heard it all too often in space battles.

That was the death cry of a ship when its back was broken.

"Ho…ly shit!"

He stood, swiftly, his hand swooping under Tali's arm, lifting the dazed girl to her feet and supporting her as the ship shuddered once more.

"C'mon! We're under attack and we've undoubtedly got hull breaches!"

Tali would be fine in her bio-suit, but Shepard's body armor and soft suit were still in his locker!

The ship swerved again, but Ken was ready this time, and he held his balance, still supporting the Quarian as he punched the access panel, opening the doors.

Immediately, heat washed over them both from the fires in the crew deck, blazing nonstop all over the place.

"Go! Start getting people to the escape pods, Tali!"

Ken pulled himself around the corner, hanging on the railing as the _Normandy_ was struck by her mysterious enemy once more, finally bringing his feet back to the ground and stumbling over to his locker.

Onyx IV armor was designed to be ready to grab in seconds if need be, but all Ken cared about was the bodysuit, not the armor plates themselves so much. However, as he finished tugging on the last part, the ship shuddered again, knocking his helmet clear.

Something exploded behind him, and he heard the dying screams of one of his crewmen. Dammit, this was Torfan all over again when the batarians tried firebombing them out!

He went scrambling after his helmet, down between the hot bunk pods, his fingers reaching repeatedly for that last piece of armor.

"Ah ha! Gotcha, bitch!" he snarled in glee, lifting the helmet and bringing it to rest over his head, locking it down into place as he stumbled over to a damage control panel.

It was bad. The _Normandy_ had dozens of smaller hull breaches already, most in the top of the craft, a few in the cargo bay, and fires were raging out of control on every level.

"Shepard!"

He turned, finding Tali behind him, obviously having passed the message around to abandon ship.

He nodded, pressing a final button on the holographic screen before he ignored it to address her again.

"Distress beacon's ready for launch. At least that part of the ship isn't damaged."

Tali nodded, riding out a minor quake easily.

"Got it! Do you think the Alliance will get here in time?"

A circuit blew up near her head, and another fire started up. Cursing, Ken leapt forward, seizing two hand-extinguishers, tossing one over to her.

"I'm not doing this just so they'll find our frozen corpses! Is everyone on the escape shuttles?"

Even as they fought a desperate and losing battle against the flames, they still managed to coordinate and move like a team, covering each other's blind spots and fighting down advancing tongues of fire with spurts of white foam.

"Joker's still on the bridge, he won't abandon ship!"

Ken swore, again, tossing the extinguisher to the side and finally just pulling a panel open, ripping several circuits out in an effort to prevent anything else from exploding.

"…I'm not leaving either."

Ken glanced over his shoulder at her, his Quarian genius, as she desperately kept up the fight. There were times for heroes, he knew. Serving in the Systems Alliance Space Marine Corps required heroes of ordinary men and women almost every single day, but a lot of the time these heroes simply ended up dead for no good reason.

Not anymore. No one else was dying today.

He spun around, grabbing Tali by the arms as he almost forcefully wrestled the extinguisher away.

"Get to the damn shuttles! I'll haul Joker's crippled ass outta here!"

"Ken…"

Frustrated now, the soldier rising to the surface once more as he stumbled to another panel, he pointed wildly towards the staircase.

"Get the fuck outta here! Now, Tali!"

She paused, as if on the verge of saying something, but he simply turned back around, ripping out another panel and tearing at more circuits, tearing at electronics in an effort to keep them from overloading.

Then she hustled away.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!" cursed Shepard over and over again as he slammed a fist onto the Emergency Evacuation Protocol button, one of the last holo-screens still working, powered by an independent power source. A siren rang out, and the Spectre knew that the side armor would be retracting to allow the shuttles a clear way out.

That only left one last thing…

As he hustled away from the malfunctioning Damage Control screen, he didn't need the barely discernable holographic warnings or the explosions going off all around him to know the _Normandy_ was on her last legs. It was the tremors through the deck, the screeching in the hull, the dents and rends and tears in the bulkheads that told him.

The mass effect field slipped, and he felt his weight suddenly lift off the deck, momentarily, before he slammed back down hard, feeling the impact shock into his ankles. That meant the primary fusion plant powering the ship was well and truly dead. It would only be seconds before the backups were killed too, so he needed to hurry.

"_Mayday! Mayday, mayday! This is SSV Normandy!"_

He'd heard that death call far too many times for his liking as ships were blasted out from under him. The _Los Angeles'_ destruction over Torfan came back to him, lost with all hands.

Not this time. It didn't matter if you heard the bullet that hit you or not, as long as you weren't dead, you could still do something about it.

"_We've suffered damage from an unknown enemy!"_

"Joker! There's no one out there!"

It was useless. Either his own radio was broken, or the pilot was ignoring him, as per character.

"_C'mon baby, hold together…hold together!"_

Ken didn't even respond this time, stepping over the shrapnel-ridden corpse of Private Henderson, one of the marines stationed aboard for security and ground team purposes. This was becoming far too eerily familiar, from several different memories, and a sense of both vertigo and déjà vu set in as he punched the emergency release button at the top of the stairs to get to the CIC.

The doors slid open, and with what sounded like a massive gale, the atmosphere behind him was suddenly pulled out into the vacuum of space. Henderson's body smacked into Shepard, and with the weakened gravitational pull from the dying mass effect field in the deck, the Spectre was almost launched skyward. Instead, he managed to spin around, sending Henderson off into the cold, unmerciful void.

Not like there was anything to be done for the man now.

As he limped along, hearing his own heightened breathing, Shepard looked up at the enormous hole torn in the top of _Normandy_, feeling his heart break as he saw the damage done to his ship. Her back wasn't just broken anymore…she was torn to shreds, barely holding on by some miracle. Hell, it was a wonder the fusion plant hadn't gone apocalyptic with the first shot, if the weapon was powerful enough to pierce kinetic barriers with the first shot.

Seats from the service terminals hung in front of him, no longer interacting with the weakened gravity and floating in the cold emptiness of space. The galaxy map was smashed, crushed under the wreckage of the roof.

Ken bit his lip, pushing forward despite the pain in his leg from Henderson's hard smack into it, stumbling forward and pushing the seats aside. He could see Joker now, the crazy bastard, anchored to his seat at the helm, trying desperately to keep the _Normandy_ afloat. But Shepard knew it was no use. He'd had far too many ships shot out from under him to be optimistic about this kind of damage.

With the fires out, due to lack of atmosphere, Ken could see that Joker had deployed his emergency face mask, a serviceman's last ditch attempt at survival in a hull breach situation. Even with enough air for two hours, Joker's organs wouldn't stand a chance in the hard vacuum. Explosive decompression was a myth, but the crushing effects of space were anything but fake. That's why so few organics engaged in infantry combat in space itself. A single projectile punctures your suit, and all your air is gone faster than anyone would have liked. If it breaks the skin…you'd be flat as a pancake before you could even blink. Hell, Joker probably already had a few broken bones just from his few minutes' exposure.

"Joker! C'mon, we gotta get the hell outta here!"

And Joker, of course, was determined to either save his beloved ship or go down with her.

"No! I won't abandon the _Normandy_! I can still save her!"

"The _Normandy's_ dead! Just like us if we don't get the fuck off this ship!"

Still, the pilot didn't want to believe the words, that final death sentence, it seemed.

"No! We just have to-"

"Lieutenant! I am giving you a direct order! Now you either get your ass outta that seat and into a fucking shuttle, or I am going to haul it over there, you got me?!"

"NO! I can…oh no."

Shepard leaned in, trying to decipher the holo-monitor as it flickered in front of him.

"What?!"

"They're coming around for another attack!"

Shepard spun around as a ripping, ear-tearing noise rang out, a yellow beam of some kind of phenomenally powerful main gun shredding through what was left of the _Normandy's_ armor like a bullet through rice paper!

"Aaaand, that's our cue to leave."

* * *

Tali could hear every word being spoken over their radios from her escape shuttle, nestled in with Garrus, Wrex, the Requisitions Officer, Chief Engineer Adams and the few other crewmen who had gotten off the lower level. As that weapon fired, it seemed to bore into her very soul as the chatter between the commander and Joker cut off for a second, replaced instead by this ear-rending ruckus of death and destruction.

"AAAH!! Shut it off!" yelled a crewman, his hands clamped over his hears as the right side of his face bled. Doctor Chakwas was in another shuttle, and no one knew where in this thing the emergency medkit was.

"_Ah! Watch the arm!"_

The radio chatter was back! Every word being spoken was another second that Shepard and Joker were alive, and Tali felt her heart slamming away in her throat like a sledgehammer as she stared up at the roof of the shuttle, in what she thought might be the general direction of the dying hulk of the _Normandy._

"_Space will probably have already given you worse injuries than me saving you, now get over there!"_

That was Kenneth! It had to be!

"_Commander! Shepard!"_

An explosion of epic proportions suddenly rang out over the comms, so clear were the radios that it almost sounded like their shuttle-pod was the thing being destroyed, instead of whatever was left of the frigate.

"Joker! Is Shepard aboard your shuttle?!"

"_That's a negative! The mass effect generator got fried with the last shot, and he was knocked away! He's still out there! Holy shit!"_

No…

She said it like a mantra, like a prayer as her eyes widened, staring up at the panel.

"No…no no no no…Keelah, no!"

There was silence, horror-inducing, terror-wrenching silence that could have introduced any number of possibilities. Everyone aboard Tali's shuttle was quiet, everyone staring up at the comms panel, everyone praying, hoping, wishing…

A grunt. A panic-laced one.

"_Ah! Tali!"_

"Ken! Yes, I'm here!"

"_Unh! I…I've got a hole…several of them…in my suit."_

The mantra began again.

"No…no…"

She could feel her tears running down her face, and her hands automatically tried to find her cheeks and eyes, getting cut short by the helmet visor in the way.

"_I…I heard that one. I definitely heard it."_

No…

It couldn't end like this! Not after everything that had happened! Saren, Sovereign, the Citadel! Feros! Virmire! Noveria! Ilos! They had only just…

She had only just realized how much she loved him.

"_Tali!...I…it's getting harder to breath…by the second…I don't have much time left…"_

"No…no…"

Sobs freely wracked her now, mixed in with the repeated denials, the hope that he would make it now utterly crushed within her.

"_Tali…I love you. I just…needed to tell you that. I'm sorry."_

"Ken…"

Silence.

The shuttle was silent, save for her sobs.

* * *

(A/N: Da-daaaa! My glorious return!)


	3. The Bullet From Behind

(A/N: I've got to say, the enormous flood of feedback I've been getting has just been overwhelming. Seriously, I posted the last chapter only last night, and I open my email to find that I've been bombarded with messages from FanFiction!

So, to reward you all for your enthusiasm, I'm posting another chapter here! It's not my best work, I will admit, but I seem to be doing something right with this story, and I'd hate for you all to think otherwise! So read, enjoy, and keep up the feedback that you've been doing!)

**You Don't Hear the Bullet**

**The Bullet from Behind**

Two Weeks Later

Aboard the _SSV Orizaba_

"And so we bury another empty casket." Councilor David Anderson muttered, rubbing at his forehead in sadness as he looked down at that very same empty casket belonging to one Staff Commander Kenneth Shepard. Even though the Council had given him a very respectful, if very formal and impersonal, funeral ceremony to honor the passing of the first human Spectre, Shepard had been a member of the Alliance military, much as Anderson chose to try and cut the man away to save him from red tape and other bull crap. He deserved what every other soldier got.

Besides, the Council's ceremony felt more like they were trying to wash Shepard off their consciences. He wouldn't let the man's memory be laid to rest like that. Shepard deserved so much better.

He turned, heading over to the rest of the soldiers falling in to rank and file as they prepared for the ceremony, targeting one man in particular who had as much of a connection with Shepard as Anderson did.

"Admiral."

Admiral Steven Hackett turned, realizing who was addressing him, and threw a salute, nodding as it was returned.

"Councilor. I knew you'd want to be aboard for this."

"Wouldn't miss it for the world, but I'd definitely give that world if I could make sure it wasn't happening in the first place."

Hackett nodded in agreement, looking back over his shoulder to the casket.

"Why hasn't his picture been turned on?"

He said this rather loudly, pointedly, and an ensign near him snapped to an embarrassed attention, spluttering and rushing forward to fix it.

"Did we even find any trace of him? Any at all?"

Hackett shook his head, reaching into his pocket and pulling out something small, something that glittered dully in the low light.

"Just this."

Anderson frowned, taking the golden dollar from the admiral's fingers and holding it up, squinting closely at it. There was a long, shiny new scratch dug into the surface, clipping one of the eagle's wings, but there was no doubt it was the same coin he'd seen Kenneth holding onto.

"He doesn't have any family…but I think I know who to pass this on to."

Hackett nodded, straightening his cap as he did so. Hackett and Shepard had only met face to face twice, but the marine's immense skill, impressive service record, and all around knack for just getting the damn job done had impressed the admiral, who was rather startled by his polite mannerisms in civil conversation. The man was ruthless, yes. His service record was littered with incidents where he had gone charging in ahead of his unit, and in the rush of them trying to catch up, most had been slaughtered. Torfan hadn't been the only time. It had just been the bloodiest.

"We've come a long way, haven't we?"

Anderson frowned, confused. The councilor had been a marine as well, Hackett had to remind himself, and he continued on before the former Captain could speak.

"Humanity's first Spectre…stopping Saren and saving the Council and Citadel…the very reason for us being on that Council."

The aging sailor pointed over at the holographic picture of Shepard at attention, hovering over his empty casket, having just been powered up by the clumsy ensign.

"All because of that man right there."

Anderson smiled sadly, nodding.

"I remember the day I first met him, back at Arcturus Station. I was expecting a total asshole, but he completely proved me wrong."

"He proved a lot of us wrong. The Reapers, the Protheans, everything we thought we knew about the galaxy, wrong."

Anderson smiled again, clapping a hand on the admiral's shoulder.

"Don't get too worried about it. He's in a better place now, without all these assholes who're saying -he's- the one who's wrong."

"Funny. Seemed he fought so hard to keep from going to that place. I got the impression he'd rather have stayed here."

* * *

Anderson found Tali'zorah nar Rayya in the back of the congregation, just as he expected he would. She'd already announced her intentions to return to the Migrant Fleet, her Pilgrimage practically over with anyway, but she had stayed for this. Not for the Council's ceremony, but for this one. A 'true show of respect' she had called it.

Seemed someone else had a chip on their shoulder about what the Council was discussing.

Tali nodded to Anderson as he approached, and he felt a light streak of irritation as he saw that she had polarized her helmet again. She'd been doing that a lot lately, as if trying to hide her face even more than usual. Funny, Shepard had once said that if you looked closely enough at an unpolarized Quarian helmet, you could see their eyes.

Anderson had to take his word for it, as he stepped closer to the young machinist.

"Councilor. It is good to see you."

He smiled sadly, shaking his head.

"Not under these circumstances."

"You're right, of course."

They stood side by side, watching more Alliance soldiers filtering in and joining the mass of blue uniforms before them, practically clogging up the dreadnought's cargo bay. With no family left, Shepard would be getting a symbolic space burial with the only remaining brothers and sisters he had left. As well as his siblings-in-arms, that also meant the crew from the _Normandy_.

Normally, aliens weren't let on board Alliance Navy vessels, but Hackett had overruled any complainers with two facts. Fact one, these were the same aliens who had helped save the Citadel with Shepard. Fact two, the _Orizaba_ was his ship and he'd be damned if he'd let anyone else tell him what he could and couldn't do aboard it.

Tali and Anderson found that they couldn't look directly at the casket or the hologram, the scars still too fresh, the wounds still not healed.

Finally, though, Anderson knew he'd have to break the silence. He turned to the Quarian, pulling the golden dollar out.

"You know what this is?"

She looked down at the coin, her expression literally unreadable behind that visor.

"…yes. He had it with him."

"It's the only thing we found of him. I know its not much, but it's the least I can do."

He gently took her wrist, pressing the coin into her fingers. She willingly took it, nodding stiffly, and Anderson knew there were undoubtedly tears in her eyes.

"Did you…did you see the statue they built on the Proscenium?"

"I try not to look at it. Nothing could ever capture just what a good man he was. But yeah, I saw it."

Even taller than the Krogan statue, Shepard was depicted, for all time, rushing forward, a shotgun in hand, bellowing in fury and rage as he stared upwards, as if daring the heavens themselves to challenge him. The marble surface was smooth, the details accurately depicted, right down to the large chunk missing from his shoulder pad during the Battle of the Citadel and the crack in his breastplate. He'd never filed for a new set of armor, said he would always live with his memories. But, despite the artist's skill and the honorable rendering, it just never seemed good enough in essence to capture how spectacular a man he truly was.

The plaques, set at either side of the lake, said only a few short words about him.

"**Commander Kenneth Shepard**

**Alliance N7 Marine**

**Hero of Torfan and Eden Prime**

**First Human Spectre**

**Saviour of the Citadel**

**We Will Never Forget His Sacrifice."**

How the hell had they expected to honor the man's memory with so few words? In Anderson's opinion, nothing short of a novel's worth could ever explain just what kind of man Shepard had been. He was impossible to pin down to a single definition. Yes, he had been kind to his crew, but ruthless and cold in the field. Yes, he had been generous to the people he knew, but uncaring and reckless in battle. To Anderson, if the Alliance had a hundred more men like Shepard, they'd never have to worry about a war ever again. People would be too intimidated to try and attack.

But they didn't. The galaxy wasn't afraid, they were ignorant. The Council wanted to sweep Sovereign under the rug, rule it out as a geth ship of impossible power, and even the Alliance brass wanted to do just that, though they were having a hard time getting a report out from under the testimony of Admiral Hackett, Rear Admiral Mikhailovich and even a few common troopers who had been aboard the Fifth Fleet ships when they had saved the _Destiny Ascension_ and seen Sovereign for themselves. Many more had heard about it and added their support as well, and still more soldiers wanted to help defend the word of the Hero of Eden Prime, or the Butcher of Torfan, or the First Human Spectre. Shepard was being called a lot of things these days, some good and some bad, but it all culminated in one fact: the admirals trying to blacken the Commander's name were slowly gaining political ground. It wouldn't be long before they could say what they wanted to without repercussions.

Tali spoke again, bringing the councilor out of his thoughts.

"It's…a good piece. But not good enough for him. He deserves better than what was given to him."

"I know. I feel the same way about that hunk of marble."

"I'm not just talking about the statue. I'm talking about everything."

She looked up at him again, still toying with the golden coin between her fingers.

"When did he ever not have to fight to gain something? He fought for his position, he fought to become a Spectre, he fought to save the entire galaxy…and what did he get for it? It's like he clawed his way up only to have the people already up there kick him down just as he got to the top."

"Tali, I feel the same way you do about it. But there's nothing we can do. I can't stop the admirals from saying what they've been saying, but I can sure as hell limit how much of it gets out."

Anderson laid a hand on her shoulder, nodding stoically, his face blank.

"What we need to do is tell those who will listen how great a man he was. Forget those who won't believe, they're a lost cause. Instead, find those who are willing to hear what kind of man Shepard was, and we'll make sure he lives on. You can't just shoot a man like him and expect that he'll die. Because he lives on despite your best efforts."

* * *

The ceremony itself was conducted flawlessly. Every member did their part, from the honor guard coming to attention on the side, to the flag bearers who laid a System Alliance banner on top of Shepard's empty casket.

"Though Kenneth Franklin Shepard is longer with us in flesh," said the ship's chaplain, not even looking at his bible as he stared out, eyes squinting, at the crowd. "He lives on in spirit. The remarkable deeds he accomplished for all of us, human and alien alike, will never be forgotten. He made history with every action taken, every decision that brought him one step closer to the man that we know him as today. A man lives on so long as he is remembered, and no one will ever forget Kenneth Shepard."

The honor guard Chief turned smartly on his heel as the chaplain stepped to the side, drawing himself up before bellowing, as sergeants and other NCOs had done for hundreds of years, "Honor guard! Present…ARMS!"

The seven Alliance marines off to the side were armed with old AR67s, solid projectile weapons that had been standard issue to all Alliance soldiers before mass effect weapons were mastered with some help from a few of the Council races. They snapped the weapons up to their chests, their gloved hands smacking sharply against the grips of the guns.

"Make ready!"

As one, the marines worked their weapons' action with sharp metallic clacks that rang out. The rifles were still considerably lethal, and some soldiers preferred to carry them and the added weight of their bullets just for the reliability and stopping power they afforded. These rifles, however, were loaded with blank rounds, and the risk of injuring someone with these weapons today was minimal.

"Aim!"

The weapons came to their shoulders, pointing towards the roof and, in essence, heaven. As if threatening God and all his angels and saints for taking the life of the soldier whose body they couldn't even recover for his own burial, a hollow threat that had never and could never be fulfilled.

"FIRE!"

A sharp snap, seven precise gunshots, ringing off the walls of the enormous cargo bay.

"FIRE!"

A second volley, ejecting seven more spent shells from the guns to fall to the ground, pinging and ringing off the deck below.

Tali looked down at the coin in her hand, the last tangible object she had to remind her of the greatest thing to have happened in her life, as tears continued to run in rivers down her cheek, her lip clenched between her teeth.

"FIRE!"

The third, and final volley rang out, the metaphysical impact slamming into Tali's body as if she herself were being shot, sledgehammered by grief as she fought to stay silent, knowing that only she could tell of the sorrow inside of her heart.

* * *

Shepard wasn't to rest in peace for long, however.

Not even minutes after the ceremony had ended, six Fleet Admirals cornered Councilor Anderson on the way out.

"Anderson, this struggle has gone on long enough," start Fleet Admiral Grant.

"No!" Anderson cut him off harshly, even bringing his hand down in a rough chop. "I am –not- going to stand here and listen to you ignorant assholes smear the name of a soldier who was ten times the man all of you are combined!"

The Admirals flinched, hearing such a dressing down coming from the former captain. Anderson himself had been an N7 graduate, and before captaining the _Normandy_ had also been a candidate for the first human Spectre. Even before –that- he had been a training camp commander, back in the good old days straight out of War College.

Hackett came up beside Anderson, his arms crossed over his chest, glaring at his colleagues.

"Shepard saved everyone, brought the Alliance to the Council, and you want to discredit him and call him a liar? Insulting a good man's memory is one of the greatest sins I've ever heard of."

"Do you have any proof, then, of this fleet of deadly starships that have somehow wiped out life every fifty-thousand years?" retorted Admiral Kasamoto, scoffing and waving his hand to the side. "Face it, Shepard was fooled like all the rest of us. That's nothing to be ashamed of, he even managed to cut through a lot of Saren's lies and kill the bastard."

"That still doesn't change what we –do- know," said Rear-Admiral Mikhailovich, coming up to join Anderson and Hackett. "Shepard was a professional soldier, a marine with an outstanding record and a lethal combat efficiency. He was our first Spectre, for Christ's sake, and you want to dump what he's said in the garbage?"

"And –you- want to believe whatever he says? I thought you all had more sense than that," snarled Admiral Petrov.

Anderson stalked forward, grabbing the Russian man by the collar and pulling him close. "Sometimes the truth is the wildest thing imaginable."

Petrov angrily pushed the councilor back, and Admiral Grant stepped between the two groups, his arms raised to try and placate the factions.

"Look, there's no doubt Shepard was a hero. That much is fact. But Anderson, we can't make wild claims to the public that the enemy is a fleet of enormous, genocidal machines. Sovereign was just one ship, -one- ship, and he managed to junk the turians' star flotilla –and- more than half of Fifth Fleet. How do you think the public will respond to this information?"

The Councilor hesitated before sighing, shaking his head wordlessly. Grant pressed his advantage.

"There's no way to know for sure. Our key witness is dead, after all. So we need to keep it under wraps. If the public catches wind of this, it's going to cause a galaxy wide panic."

"You're all idiots."

The voice came from the side, and everyone turned, surprised, to find Tali standing next to them, visibly furious, her body shaking from anger instead of grief now.

"One of your best soldiers is –dead- after giving you so much and taking so little, and you want to deny what he says on the basis of no proof?! Here's your proof, the absence of the Protheans! And what's more, you bosh'tets, you should believe him anyway!"

Having silenced the bickering officers with her brief rant, Tali let out an audible sob, overwhelmed with so many negative emotions that she just couldn't hold it back.

"This…this was supposed to be where you –honor- his memory. Not shoot him in the back when he can't defend himself!"

She held up a fist, the one clutching the coin, and finally turned away, storming towards the exit.

No one dared to follow her.

(A/N: And so, another chapter is added!

I don't know how long I'll make this story, but I can honestly say that if you people keep up the feedback you have been, they'll come swiftly and in great quantities!

Sayonara!)


	4. The Ghost

(A/N: Wow. That's literally all I can say, is just wow. Every few minutes, I'll check my Inbox, and there's another Alert, or a Favorite Story, or a Review, or something like that.

And the reviews themselves are great! Thanks to everyone for the support and encouragement I was looking for to keep this fic going! All those who have posted ideas, I'm taking them into consideration!

You people are making this fic live as much as I am writing it!)

**You Don't Hear the Bullet**

**The Ghost**

Two Years Later

Freedom's Progress Colony

"Prazza, I'm not going over this with you again!"

"_But we've got enemy mechs –everywhere- and you just want to ignore a Cerberus shuttle that just –happens- to be coming down on our heads?!"_

Keelah! Some days, she just wanted to strangle the idiot for his stupidity, while other days she just wanted to shoot him, avoid all the trouble of waiting for his bio-suit to run out of air. Why, of all the quarians in the Migrant Fleet, had such a moron been chosen to accompany her to find Veetor?

Tali missed what was known as 'the old days,' back when Shepard was around. They'd have a mission wrapped up in hours, not days, and they didn't have to put up with idiocy. Shepard only took on the best, and the team they had assembled had been fantastic. Every enemy that came before them was mercilessly blown over, bulldozed and sent face first to hell.

Of course, if you had mentioned Kenneth Shepard to her about a year ago, chances were she would have broken down right in front of you and cried her eyes out.

Not anymore.

Tali'zorah vas Neema was a completely different woman, a hard-set, resolute-minded quarian determined to make sure she and as many people around her as she could made it through whatever happened.

So, for what seemed like the hundredth time, she sighed, gritting her teeth as her hand pressed the button on her helmet to activate her radio.

"Prazza, right now that shuttle is the least of our worries. Tell the squad to regroup and meet me at the central catwalk maintenance hub. We need to rethink our strategy."

"…_copy that."_

Though Prazza was a moron, and a pessimistic one at that, two traits that should never be combined, he understood that she was in command here, and would follow orders. Although, she'd feel better if she had a squad of Migrant Fleet Marines at her back. Or, failing that, a few Alliance marines.

But the scouts sent to scan the planet had reported no sign of hostile movement, and the Alliance didn't even have a token garrison anywhere in the Terminus Systems. These colonies had been settled by human corporations, same as anywhere else in human space, but the Alliance could not reach into the Terminus.

"It didn't used to be like this…" she muttered, her hand moving to her belt to pull the old human revolver from its holster. A solid slug weapon, the thing had to be at least twenty years old, but the stopping power it provided was definitely not something to pass over.

Quarians lived on the fringes of other species' existences, and that also meant using their weapons, too. The few ships in the Migrant Fleet made for manufacturing were given over to machinery, bio-suits and other far more important things that could not be obtained outside the Fleet. Weapons, on the other hand, were in enormous supply from foreigners. The bullets for her own sidearm were expensive as hell, but fortunately, powder based projectiles were still in great supply in old armories and the criminal elements of the galaxy.

She checked the chamber, snapping the cylinder shut before holstering it and pulling a far more modern Scimitar II shotgun from her back. At least she didn't need to worry about ammunition for this weapon, just thermal clips.

Freedom's Progress was a depressing sight to behold. After seeing so many other human colonies, such as a rebuilt Eden Prime, Feros when it got back up to speed, and even Horizon once or twice, she had become used to seeing humans in such great numbers. Whereas barely ten years before they'd been as rare a sight to behold as a drell or a quarian, it seemed humanity had simply flooded onto the galactic scene. As she understood it, Earth's population currently stood at eleven billion, and it was climbing all the time.

She slipped off the hab-unit she had been standing on, pausing on the walkway next to it for only a second before turning and hustling through another door, shotgun up and ready. Veetor had set some of the LOKI mechs in proximity mode, activating only when a heat source came within a few yards. In their undeployed, compacted state, the mechanical security devices were impossible to see until you were right on top of them. Poor Veetor, he really had to be in a state if he couldn't tell friend from foe.

Months of working by herself or as the head of a team had hardened Tali from head to toe, from mind to soul. Fit as a Marine, technologically savvy as anyone else in the Fleet, she had proven she could accomplish the impossible several times now, and didn't balk to intimidation or long odds. Hell, she almost relished it, a chance that gave her time to think back and recall her time on Shepard's team…

* * *

_The facility was clearly deserted, the underground cavern hidden beneath the freighter compartments that the hypnotized colonists had placed there to guard their secret. As they moved through the prothean ruins, every team member kept their weapons raised, all three packing shotguns._

"_Eyes sharp," muttered Shepard, leaning around a corner. "This place is a CQB deathtrap…"_

"_No doubt to that," declared Ashley, double checking the thermal clip in her own weapon._

_Tali said nothing, unsure of what kind of combat jargon she should be spouting. Even though she'd told Shepard she could handle herself, and she did know how to use her weapons, she was more used to sneaking up on isolated geth patrols and hacking them quickly. Those mercenaries back on the Citadel hadn't been much of a problem either, a simple matter of overloading their barriers and using some clever explosives. Granted, she'd never expected shotgun blasts and the rattling of assault rifle fire to suddenly ring out from the staircase and tear into them, but before she could even blink, three more contestants had joined the fight, soldiers by the look of them. A krogan, a turian and even a human. That was where she'd first met him...  
_

"_So what now? It sounds to me like we just find this Thorian thing and destroy it, right?"_

_Ashley snorted, laughing as they finally found the main chamber._

"_If you ask me, we just need to put a bullet in this thing's head, and we…can…"_

_All three fell silent, rightly so, as they took in the –full- picture of just what the Thorian was._

"_That…doesn't look like any plant I've ever seen…" Tali pointed out uselessly, lost for other words as her eyes glanced over the thick tentacles, the hulking mass, the almost face-like…face, for lack of better terms._

"_We are going to need bigger guns…" muttered Shepard. He was still for a moment, studying the creature quietly before suddenly spouting "…nothing's ever –SIMPLE-, is it?!"

* * *

_

The door slid open, and Prazza turned, having been addressing his squad beforehand, and nodded stiffly to Tali, the others parting to let her at the hologram projector they had set up.

"Tali'zorah. Good to see you made it."

"Prazza, I'm almost up to my neck in my tolerance for your attitude. Let's get this started before I kill you myself."

She knelt down, followed by the others as they did the same, watching her move the map around until it fixed on the shack that they were in.

"Alright, this is our location. We've confirmed that Veetor is on the other side of the colony to the northwest, in the warehouses we saw. If we want the shortest route to him, we have two options."

She zoomed out a bit, before using her finger to point out the first route.

"This one will take us through the residential area. Lots of tight corners, plenty of places for security mechs to hide."

One of Prazza's men shook his head, grumbling "That's going to be a close-quarters nightmare."

Tali ignored him, knowing that pouncing on his comment would get them nowhere.

"The other route takes us through the loading bays. Lots of open room, but it loops quite a bit more, and we're more likely to run into heavy security."

"No way, I don't want to go against YMIR mechs…" muttered another woman, shaking her head.

Tali fought to control her rising anger as she pointed at the warehouses once more.

"Veetor is in there somewhere, and its our job to bring him back. I know you're not soldiers, but the Marines couldn't be sent."

Prazza decided to be an idiot again, no surprise. Honestly, the jackass had to be doing it on purpose for it to happen this much.

"What about that shuttle? I heard gunfire and explosions a bit ago. Those Cerberus bosh'tets are probably hammering their way through those mechs we managed to side skirt. I bet we'll be getting swarmed in Cerberus commandos anytime now."

"Prazza, did you see how small that thing was? If and when we run into them, I doubt there'll be more of them then there are of us! So shut up, sit down, and let me handle it if they find us!"

The man raised his hands to placate the furious machinist, muttering "Okay, okay…Keelah, didn't mean to piss you off…"

She growled under her breath, moving back to the hologram.

"Anyway…if we move quickly, we can-"

Suddenly, another door opened, and Prazza was the first to leap up, his turian assault rifle unfolded and at his shoulder.

"Stop right there!"

As Tali herself rose, already swatting Prazza's rifle to the side and sidestepping one of the squad members with a shotgun held uneasily in his hands, she caught a brief glimpse of the humans entering the room. Two wore very obvious Cerberus outfits, the orange ring symbol emblazoned somewhere on their black and white outfits. All she could see about the third in her rush to stop Prazza from getting them all killed, was that he was wearing heavy black armor. Two operatives with a commando, then?

"Prazza! You said you'd let –me- handle this!"

She turned away from the stubborn idiot, intending to speak to the humans and try to work out some way that wouldn't see them all sliced with more holes than a human cheese grater, when her body froze, her mind seeming to shut down as a realization struck her.

The commando's right sleeve was painted red. A stripe going all the way from the wrist, up past the elbow, and to the shoulder.

A Katana shotgun was clutched in his hands, rock steady arms holding the weapon at his waist, the barrel shifting slightly as if by accident, but really just changing targets.

White lettering declared 'N7' boldly on the breastplate.

Then…who else could that be, but…

Her eyes finally drifted up, flitting over cheeks decorated with barely-healed scars, past a layer of red stubble over a much older and better healed chin scar, a nose that looked as if it had been broken twice and hadn't properly healed the second time…

And met emerald green eyes that were undoubtedly as wide in shock as hers were.

The shoulders drooped a bit, the shotgun came down, and Commander Kenneth Shepard, confirmed KIA for more than two years, opened his mouth, obviously unsure of what to say.

But Tali had already come up with a word.

"Impossible…that's impossible…"

"…Tali?"

She turned to him fully now, feeling her eyes moisten once more and her barriers start to break down.

"I don't…I heard you die. I was at your funeral, the one the Alliance did for you…I…how?"

Shepard stood up straighter now, scratching his head like an awkward kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar, trying to come up with an explanation.

"Well…Cerberus rebuilt me. Revived me. I only woke up about a week ago."

They stared at each other in silence now, oblivious to the confused expressions of either party's members. Of course, with the quarians it was hard to tell by faces, but their body language definitely said that they were as perplexed as the humans.

And then, the shotgun hit the ground, clattering until it came to rest. With a clank of boots on metal, he strode forward, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and pulling her in close, squeezing her tightly.

And she broke down. Her head leaned into his shoulder, and her eyes began to stream with tears, her body choking with sobs. Whether they were tears of joy or tears of grief, not even she knew.

He just held her, not saying anything, not making a sound. Of course to him, he'd only seen her a short while ago, what must have seemed like a few weeks, maybe. But not only had she been forced to live with the memory of his death and accept the fact that he was gone, Tali also thought she had finally put him behind her, squared it away emotionally and built up her mental barriers. And now, here he was, breaking them down as easily as if they were glass, sending a torrent of grief at his loss, anger that he had suddenly popped up in her life again, sadness at the time she'd spent without him, and immense, irrevocable glee at the fact that this was indeed –not- a dream.

She managed to control herself again after a few minutes, however, and pulled away, sniffling but no longer sobbing.

His face was a mask of regret, self-hate and anger, but he still had a small smile on. Just for her, she realized.

"…I'm sorry I left," he said, softly.

In reply, she rested a hand on his cheek, whispering "It doesn't matter now. You're alive. You're back. That's all that's important."

The moment held together for one brief second, a pristine crystalline sort of second, before it was broken.

Miranda Lawson cleared her throat.

"Commander."

The word was simple, holding a dozen different meanings, but the tone was clearly a 'this is not the time for xenophilia' sort, and Shepard bared his teeth in irritation, briefly, before hiding them in his grimace and reluctantly letting Tali go. Likewise, she moved away unwillingly, knowing that they were on a mission, here on an important job.

They needed to get back to that mindset.

Shepard leaned down, scooping up his shotgun as he reapplied his Soldier Face.

"What are you doing here, Tali?"

She would have winced at his tone of voice, cold as a glacier and emotionless, but she knew it was all part of the act. He needed to get his 'game-face on' as humans called it, and she needed to do the same, quickly applying the figurative mask.

But, as she launched into how they had come here looking for Veetor, who they knew was here on this planet and was undoubtedly sick, she caught his eyes, his deep green eyes.

Those still smiled at her, an inviting fire in the middle of that chunk of ice that his face had become.

(A/N: to those of you who noticed, I am indeed tweaking the diologue a bit more than I would in another fic. Although its important to stick to what the game lays out for you, I feel that I've already blown that out of the water with circumstances. You'll recognize some lines, for sure, but alot of it is my spin, my timeline, my universe.

Because hey! That's what Mass Effect is all about!

Thanks for the support, people! Keep it up!)


	5. The Ghost pt 2

(A/N: Blarrrrrr-arrrrr-arrrrr-ggggh!!! That's the sound of me DROWNING in the number of reviews, alerts that A) people have subscribed or B) that I've been made someone's favorite author, and all pertaining to this one story, that I've been getting!! YOU GUYS FUCKING ROCK!!!! Seriously, I've been slamming my head against the wall trying to figure out how to make a chapter worthy of all the praise you're pouring on me! I will admit, I had to scrap this chapter a few times before I finally got it, and there are a few things I'm still not happy with! But then again, an author is his own harshest critic! So why don't you 'lightweights' go at it? Enjoy!)

**You Don't Hear the Bullet**

**The Ghost Pt. 2**

**Whispers of the Past**

Ten Minutes Later

Freedom's Progress, the Warehouses

"What the hell is that?" asked a surprised Jacob, squinting at the screen to confirm what he was seeing.

"My God…I think it's a Collector."

Shepard turned to Miranda, frowning and utterly confused now. Those damn mechs had given them one hell of a fight, sure, enough to send an entire platoon running away from the whole shock-and-awe effect that seeing two tons of white machine butchering a bunch of quarians could incite, but then they work all the way down here to find a half-delusional quarian with no clue that there was anyone one else friendly out there.

Just to end his hysterical ranting, Shepard had drawn his sidearm, planting a round into the bottom most right screen. That had startled Veetor enough, at least, to rise and turn to them.

"What the fuck is a Collector?"

Jacob kept staring at the screens, his face an unreadable mask caught in between either fear, apprehension, cold-blooded anger and just all out awestruckness.

"An alien species from beyond the Omega-4 relay…only a few people have ever seen one in person."

"They usually work through intermediaries. Like slavers or hired mercenaries. If they're in involved with the Reapers somehow, it could explain what happened to the colonies." Miranda, at least, had managed to keep the shock out of her voice, but even as she told Shepard what the hell these things were, the operative's eyes continued to glance back at the distorted images, as if hoping they would suddenly disappear.

"So, lemme get this straight…" Shepard turned to the Cerberus agents, sending a point at the screen. "We're dealing with some alien species that no one knows next to nothing about, -and- they can move with no one detecting them" The hand fell, and he shook his head, grunting "…shit, it's the whole boogeyman effect from the geth all over again."

Jacob raised an eyebrow before offering a little bit of information, which would explain exactly why this might be the case. "The Collectors have advanced technology."

"How advanced we talking here? Like, asari advanced or what?"

"Lemme put it this way: they've got a weapon that can neutralize an entire colony at once, and stealth workings to mask their FTL trail. What do you think?"

Ah, so the marine was still in the man after all.

Shepard glanced at Veetor again, who had remarkably regained his composure. Kid probably realized he wasn't going to die after all and was a little less scared-shitless.

"Anything useful to put in about that?"

Veeter resumed the footage, panning the camera.

"The Seeker swarms. No one can hide. The Seekers find you. Freeze you…then the monsters take you away."

Shepard frowned, grinding his teeth together in thought.

"So…why didn't the Collectors take you? These things look like little probes or something. Machines aren't flawless, but come on, right?"

Veetor shook his head hard, as if to try and dispel some kind of notion of treason, or a thought from his head.

"Swarms didn't find me. Monsters didn't know I was here."

Shepard felt a sinking feeling in his gut, and he screwed up his face in thought before asking, rhetorically, "Why do I get the feeling that's a mixed blessing?"

"The Collectors aren't known for being careless. Maybe his enviro-suit kept him from showing up on their sensors."

"Taylor, you can still find quarians on detectors, thermal or otherwise. The suit doesn't mask temperature, it has to vent it at some point. Like the Normandy's stealth systems."

Miranda snapped her fingers as she turned back to the arguing ex-marines, an idea having obviously occurred to her.

"Maybe they're using technology specifically designed to detect humans. Only human colonies have been hit."

Both men nodded in agreement, Veetor standing by quietly and swaying quite dangerously. Maybe they should stop standing around yakking and get the sick kid to a medbay or something, Shepard thought, frowning.

"Hey, Veetor. You still with us?"

He reached forward, lightly slapping the quarian on the facemask, getting a jump and a splutter of gibberish in return.

"I'll take that as a yes. Okay, so these little clouds of probes came and froze people…some kind of stasis device, maybe?"

The question was directed at Miranda, and she drew closer to the screens as well, scratching at her chin. The poor resolution from the camera wasn't helping out very much, but she nodded with a fair degree of confidence.

"Sounds like it. Or a neuro-toxin, maybe. Never let it be said that less-advanced tech doesn't work."

Ken nodded again as well, turning back to Veetor, steadying him with his hands on the boy's shoulders.

"Alright, what happened next, Veetor?"

The quarian spoke the next sentence with absolute terror lining his voice, as if the very thought of the events that had transpired had been enough to drive him insane. Judging by what they'd seen, and the infection he was probably having, and that was understandable.

"The monsters took the people onto the ship. And then they left?"

"Just like that?"

"Yes…but they'll be back for me. No one escapes!"

Veetor suddenly let out a groan, his legs giving out from under him as the infection took hold, sapping the kid's strength. A little startled, Shepard nonetheless got him down to a sitting position on the floor, leaning him against the desk.

"I think that's probably all we're getting out of him, Commander."

"Would you be quiet, Taylor? The kid's sick, he doesn't need to be questioned right now."

The Soldier was slowly melting away, now that the danger had passed, and the Man was coming back to the surface as he turned back, giving Veetor a cursory glance over.

"I can't see any rips in the suit…you still with us?"

The quarian nodded, obviously feeling a little better now that he was resting on the floor. Ken nodded down at him, patting his shoulder thankfully.

"We appreciate what you told us. You were very helpful."

Veetor raised his arm, activating the omni-tool undoubtedly set into his armor.

"I studied them…the monsters...the Swarms. I recorded them with my omni-tool…lots of readings…electromagnetic…dark energy."

Shepard would have simply thanked him for his assistance and waited around to make sure Tali got to him, but Miranda stepped up, quickly, peering over the ex-Spectre's shoulder at the omni-tool.

"We need to get this data to the Illusive Man. Grab him and call the shuttle to come pick us up."

An exasperated Shepard was about to tell Miranda exactly where she could take her recommendations, he was in charge here thank you very much, when the door slid open, prompting all three humans to reach for the weapons at their belts before they saw who it was.

Tali stormed in, obviously having heard Miranda's comment.

"What?! Veetor is injured! He needs treatment, -not- an interrogation!"

Jacob, always the mediator who was trying to be everyone's best friend, raised his hands to try and placate the angry quarian.

"We won't hurt him. We just need to see if he knows anything else. He'll be returned unharmed."

Miranda chimed in, ever ready to ride to the assistance of one of her own, even if it meant bulldozing over the head of the man in charge.

"Your people tried to betray us once already. If we give him to you, we might never get the intel we need."

Ken Shepard hadn't looked back at his squadmates, his eye twitching in barely contained anger. Never let it be said that Shepard took crap from anyone.

"Prazza was an idiot, and he and his men paid for it. You're welcome to take Veetor's omni-tool data, but please, just let me take him!"

Miranda stepped forward, her face already set in an 'I really don't like the way you just said that' sort of expression, her mouth open for some witty, sarcastic response, when a harsh, gravelly voice snarled "Enough, ENOUGH!"

All eyes glanced down to the Commander, who was hefting Veetor up from the floor, one of the kid's arms pulled over his shoulders as he fixed the other two humans with death glares.

"You both are idiots. Tali, here. Take Veetor. I got his omni-tool's matrix."

* * *

_It was such a shame that such a beautiful place as Virmire would have to be subjected to such a battlefield, Tali thought as she helped push the ship drive down the ramp. A team of Alliance marines, Kaiden Alenko, and a few other technicians accompany her, carefully making sure that the drive doesn't immediately go off in their faces._

_Shepard waves at them, followed by Garrus and Wrex, his heavy hitting jack-of-all trades group._

"_Commander! Good to see you made it!"_

_She waves back, turning it into a gesture for them to come over as the Alliance techs set the core down, Alenko giving it the final check over._

'_Shadow Team' as Kirrahe had referred to them, slogged over to the group, looking the ad-hoc nuclear charge over._

"_That is one ugly bomb," remarked Garrus, chuckling as he hefted the rifle in his hands._

"_Doesn't need to look beautiful to blow people into hell and back. Just look at you," remarked Wrex as he slammed a teasing blow into the turian's shoulder. "First time I met you, I thought you were mooning me."_

"_Alright, cut out the ugly jokes, people. No one's allowed to call my team members hideous except me."_

_Despite the levity of the comment, and the guffaws and chuckles it rang from his two teammates, Shepard's tone and face were still stone-solid, as nothing could penetrate his Soldier Face, as Tali had taken to calling it. As if he was an actor in a play, switching masks behind the set to transform into a completely different person._

_Alenko stepped over, saluting briefly to the Commander, his omni-tool linked up to the rough warhead still._

"_Charge is in place sir. Whenever you're ready."_

_Shepard nodded, glancing around as he replied "Good. We just need to wait for Kirrahe and Williams to rendezvous with us, then we can-"_

_Without warning, everyone's radio headset suddenly burst with static, gunfire, screams and all the associated audio chaos of a battle going terribly, terribly wrong._

"_Commander! This is Williams, we're getting hammered out here! Captain Kirrahe is dead!"_

_Wrex cursed, racking his shotgun. "Must've been those alarms we set off! Looks like your faith didn't exactly reach out to their weapons, did it Shepard?"_

"_Aw, fuck! Williams, pull back to Ground Zero!"_

"_Negative! We can't push through! We're pinned down in the AA towers!"_

_Tali caught movement at the edge of her vision, and turned her head, eyes widening, as Shepard hustled forward, pointing to a pair of Alliance marines to accompany him._

"_You two! With me! Wrex, Garrus, get onto the __Normandy!__ I'm not losing anyone else today!"_

_Several soldiers watched and stared, dumbly, as the Commander and his new ground team disappeared through the gates, though Tali couldn't really understand why until Kaiden spoke._

"_I don't believe it…that son of a bitch has a heart under all that ice after all."_

_Tali swung her head around, confused as ever. Sure, she'd seen Kenneth Shepard make some difficult and harsh choices as she had worked alongside him, but in hindsight they were all rather necessary. Of course, Kaiden had worked the Commander on both Noveria and Eden Prime. He'd seen more of the marine in action than she had._

"_Why would you say that, Kaiden?"_

_The Sentinel glanced over at the quarian before nodding back towards the gate the ground team had just vanished through._

"_He's ruthless. Harsh. A grade-A bastard sometimes. Course, on the ship is a different story, he's practically like a brother to me, y'know? Still…I saw him back on Eden Prime, when one of our boys named Jenkins got killed. First __Normandy__ ground team casualty. And Shepard just left him. No promise to get the body, nothing. Just pushed on without a second thought."_

_As if to distract himself, Alenko turned away, focusing on his omni-tool again, running a diagnostic._

"_He's gotten better about it, sure, but I wasn't quite so sure if he'd started to become more aware of his actions in the field…for awhile, I was sure that was exactly what he was. Cold. Unforgiving. But now…that just proves that he's beginning to bring the line between Man and Marine together."_

_He glanced up at the now bewildered quarian, shrugging lightly._

"_You know how it is. These things-"_

"_SHIT! INCOMING!"_

_The first set of gates, coming from the rest of the compound which Shepard and Shadow Team were supposed to have cleared on their way here, were suddenly blasted open, sending chunks of rubble flying everywhere and spilling forth a wave of krogan and geth soldiers._

"_Return fire! Return fire!" The marines and technicians left began scrambling for cover, shooting as they moved, but as badly outnumbered as they were, they were no match for Saren's swarms._

"_Go! Joker, get outta here!"_

_The __Normandy__ powered up her engines at Alenko's insistence, and the frigate rose as a few rockets and Carnage explosive rounds smacked into her hull. Tali grabbed at one of the support beams next to the Mako's open pathway, trying to steady herself as the ship coasted around through the air._

"_Mayday! This is Alenko, we are under attack, repeat, the bomb site is under attack!"_

_The radio was crackling again, and in the background, shots and explosions could be heard flying._

"_This is Shepard, my ground team is KIA. Alenko, can you hold?"_

"_Negative! We're badly outnumbered, outgunned, and have no cover!"_

"_Commander, this is Williams! We can't hold out over here, you need to leave us and get Alenko out of here!"_

_Even though Tali couldn't spare one of her hands to get to the talk button on her radio, she still voiced her opinion, vehemently loud._

"_Keelah! They can't expect him to choose who to save!"_

_However, they didn't seem to realize that there was an angry quarian on the __Normandy__ who was going against exactly what they were about to suggest._

"_Commander! Alenko here, I've armed the nuke!"_

"_What?! Lieutenant, what the FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!!"_

_Tali almost felt her heart freeze as the cold ferocity of Kenneth's snarl rang out over the radio, his gravelly voice and vehement anger grinding into her ear like an armor piercing bullet. She'd –never- heard him react like this before, and to hear such a thing now was completely alien to her, something she'd never expect to listen to coming from his mouth._

"_Commander, I'm making sure this bomb is going off! AAAH!"_

_A shot, a splatter of a bullet meeting bare flesh, followed by a splash. Alenko's shields must have overloaded!_

"_It's all down to you Commander…get out of here."_

"_Alenko's right! We'll hold them off long enough for you to get clear, Shepard!"_

"_NO! For fuck's sake, I am NOT leaving anyone behind to die!"_

_Joker came in over the radio now, and she felt the __Normandy__ tilt as it came in for a steady bearing, obviously on a single spot._

"_Commander, I'm getting the feedback from Alenko's omni-tool! There's not even enough time to fight through the geth and save –one!- You're too far away from either of them-"_

"_Joker, you ask me to do this, you may as well ask me to pull the fucking trigger my goddamn self!"_

"_Commander, this isn't a request! Get onto that ship! It's not an order, but you can kiss my ass anyway!"_

"_Williams is right! There's no time!"_

_Tali finally let go of the supporting strut, covering her visor as the ramp lowered once more, showing that the __Normandy__ was coming down over what looked like some kind of hydroelectric dam structure. The silence over the radio disturbed her, and just as she was about to punch the talk button, she spotted him._

_He stood in the center of the damn, shotgun up, aimed at the malicious figure who had risen up on his seemingly trademark hover platform, his skin gleaming with seemingly metallic features._

_Saren._

_Whatever Shepard was saying, Tali couldn't hear it, which meant his radio wasn't on, but it must have been venomous and strong, because he suddenly let his shotgun go, raising a hand with the middle finger raised._

_Oooh, Saren didn't like that. With a burst of automatic fire, the turian began blasting, and Shepard began running for cover at a half-slouch, his shotgun booming over and over. Bullets gleamed off each of the combatants shields, sending a firework display of color streaking in all directions._

_Tali was suddenly slammed to the deck as a stray round caught her in her own shields, and she felt the wind get knocked out of her lungs, coughing and choking to get her breath back._

_A few sets of hands took the quarian under her shoulders, bringing the machinist to sit up, hacking as she tried to breath again. A shot rang out, and she realized Garrus must be providing supporting long range fire._

"_Easy, take it easy Tali. We got you."_

_The rumble belonged to Wrex, and she was mildly shocked at the care and concern in his voice, but was a little too concerned with trying to look up and find out what was happening._

_Just as she did, however, Garrus cried out "Holy shit! What the hell did Saren just use?!"_

_Her first thought was the most grim, that the turian psychopath had indeed beaten the first human Spectre, but as she finally cleared her vision, Tali could see that Shepard had only been knocked to the ground, and Saren, looming over him like some kind of dromeosaur swooping down on its prey, was lunging down, grabbing the red-haired human by the throat, and heaving him into the air. The power in that turian's arm!_

_And then, as they sometimes did in the holo-dramas, time seemed to slow down for Tali'zorah nar Rayya. Her vision cleared exponentially, and she could suddenly see every detail of the epic struggle happening before her, on that dam in the middle of a facility about to be turned to ash by an overloaded drive core._

_Shepard's helmet had been knocked away in the firefight, presumably when he had done whatever he had to get Saren down from that hover platform. He had acquired a new injury at his temple, his hair matted with blood even redder than his already crimson tresses, dripping down the side of his face in a steady rivulet. A few fresh bruises dotted his features as well, but his eyes were wide and filled to the brim with defiant flame, his chapped lips parted to expose his snarling, grit teeth. Shepard was a soldier, no doubt about that, and no death would take him without a fight._

_His right left hand was locked around Saren's wrist, trying to clamp down and force the turian to drop him from sheer force of will with his right hand went for the pistol at his belt._

_If asked later, Tali couldn't actually say when it was that she fell in love with Kenneth Shepard. She'd always admired him from what she felt was the background, and grew to admit that she did indeed feel something for him as he came to visit her more and more. But love? Love is a powerful emotion, a connection you feel to another person that is so strong that it makes you sick when you're not with them. Ask her if there might have been a single moment, though, and Tali might say it could have been one of two times: one when he emerged from the wreckage of the Citadel after narrowly escaping what seemed certain death, and when he refused to die on that dam, facing Saren._

_The moment was shattered when Saren, distracted by something, looked away, his grip visibly loosening, and Shepard managed to pull his Kessler sidearm, bringing the sidearm across and firing two clumsy shots. The first one slammed into the turian's shoulder, while the other buried into his torso, both too close to be affected by his kinetic barriers._

_Saren staggered backwards, letting the Spectre fall to the ground, his taloned hand covering his torso wound as he coughed, sending a trail of blue blood down his chin from between his mandibles. A poisonous look at Shepard later, and the rogue was suddenly aboard his hover platform again, coasting swiftly out of weapons range._

_Tali finally pulled herself to her feet as the __Normandy__, coming in slow all this time to avoid slamming into the million and one things that were jutting up and could have torn them a new cargo bay, finally settled in next to the dam. She, Garrus and Wrex were the first ones out, collecting up a very winded Shepard and heaving him bodily aboard._

_Even as the frigate swerved away, the ramp shutting for the final time, Tali made sure she was supporting Shepard, pulling him to safety when he couldn't. There were thick, fresh bruises on his neck, and a shallow cut in the side where one of Saren's talons had slashed him, but he wasn't bleeding seriously, at least._

"…_nh…get off…get off, get the FUCK OFF!"_

_He suddenly got his wind back, snapping to his feet and slamming his arms together, breaking her hold and shaking off everyone else's. But it was his voice that hurt her the most, she realized. Like a rusty knife stabbed right into her gut as Shepard pounded over to the elevator, shouting obscenities at Joker over the radio to turn the frigate around and go back, they needed to save Williams and Alenko._

_The drive core overloaded six seconds later._

_Shepard saw the explosion from space, from one of the __Normandy's__ windows._

_No one saw him for two whole days.

* * *

_

That had been the last time Tali had heard Kenneth Shepard speak in such a way, and it chilled her to the bone once more. She knew this wasn't the time to try and push him, or test his limits.

So, she stepped forward, silently taking Veetor's half-concious weight on her shoulders.

"Oh, wait!"

She stumbled, trying to keep the kid steady as her other hand dug through her pockets, searching. She'd only just remembered, but she knew now might be the only time she had to give it to him.

He arm stretched out, her hand fisted. Shepard cocked his head, an eyebrow raised.

"What's this?"

Nonetheless, he stepped closer, holding his own hand out under hers.

She let the golden dollar fall from between her fingers.

"It's yours. Anderson gave it to me at your funeral. I think you should have it back."

She turned, slipping her arm around Veetor's waist to heft him out, steeling her emotions over again as she prepared to once more say goodbye to the man she loved…

When she stopped. A hand was on her shoulder, halting her forward movement. She blinked in surprise, not expecting this, not expecting when Ken stepped around her, smiling down at her, smiling of all things in a battlefield like this, and reaching forward, finding one of her pockets and gently sliding the coin into it again.

He leaned forward, gently bringing his forehead to hers, still smiling a full-fledged, no regrets, pure joy smile, and she stared up at him through her visor, wide-eyed and confused, feeling the heat rising in her cheeks again. Maybe quarians could blush after all, she decided. Blue skin, blue blood…more concentration of blood means darker color, maybe? She decided she might find out later with a mirror.

"Keep it, Tali," he said softly, shocking her out of her mind-babble. "It's yours now. Keep it for when you think of me." He gave her a slightly awkward one-armed hug, what with Veetor being on her other shoulder, smiled at her one last time…

Before he was suddenly all business, his face snapping back to solid steel.

"Miranda! ETA on the Kodiak?"

"Five minutes. They're coming down back in the loading docks."

"Then that's where we're heading. Jacob, you take point! Who knows what other mechs may still be active out here!"

"Yessir!"

Within seconds, he was gone again, off with his new team to undoubtedly save the galaxy once more.

She brought a hand up to her visor, realizing it was shaking, and felt a slight sense of disappointment.

Tali finally realized that she really wished he could have kissed her.

(A/N: I'm almost afraid to tell you guys to review…you might make my email explode…

Anyway, I had a few people call out that they weren't quite sure what to make of my Shepard, so I decided to enlighten y'all a bit!)


	6. The Recording

(A/N: You guys do realize that all this praise is simply feeding my ego, right? *chuckles* Anyway, I just really want to thank all of you for this. My most successful story thus far, and it looks like it might be one of the only ones I finish.

Taking a bit of advice from jbh61987, I've decided to take the creative liberty to start filling plot holes in the ME2 storyline. We all know what happens with Shepard, which direction he goes along, if we can simply fill in a few details here and there. But with Tali? Never really defined, is it?

For your enjoyment, another filler chapter, because I have been rather busy with midterms!

Read, enjoy, fatten my ego, all that good stuff!)

**You Don't Hear the Bullet**

**The Recording**

Six Days Later

The Migrant Fleet, aboard the _Neema_

"…so Tali, I hear you took your suit off for a human."

This would be what one of those old fashioned human comedies Garrus had liked to watch aboard the first _Normandy_ would refer to as a 'spittake moment.'

Tali had been absentmindedly running a diagnostic with an aged data pad on one of the _Neema's_ fuel injectors, a crucial device that had to be at least twice as old as she was. Nonetheless, regular checks and a little 'tender loving care' as humans said, ensured that the injector was always working to maximum standards. And indeed, the part was performing admirably, and was probably one of the few parts aboard the ship that –wasn't- given over to odd malfunctions at the worst possible times.

When someone gives you the quarian equivalent of calling you a whore, however, you stopped praising engines and started throwing curses.

Such as…

"WHAT?!"

She spun around, trying not to lose her temper.

"What the HELL are you talking about, you idiotic pervert?!"

Hell, she would have struck Ferr'ursan had she not realized that the older quarian was doubled over in barely suppressed laughter with his partner in crime Gola, who had no such reservations about keeping her amusement under wraps, smacking the wall as she guffawed heartily.

Tali felt the heat rise in her cheeks in anger (turns out quarians –could- blush after all. She'd felt a little dizzy and nocuous for about a day, but the mirror had proven that fact), and her eyes narrowed as she realized that she had fallen for the trick. Had it been untrue, most quarians would have calmly brushed it aside. Even in anger, most of her kind spoke in quite level tones, only letting emotion take control in extreme cases, such as fits of rage or sadness.

Obviously, it –wasn't- true. Shepard may not be a gentleman, but he definitely wasn't trying to get her into his bed anytime soon, something she'd been propositioned for by several drunk or rude members of various species time and again. Still, her reaction had given the troublesome duo something to laugh over for awhile.

* * *

Life aboard the Fleet had continued on like normal ever since Tali returned, not just from Freedom's Progress with Veetor, but also from her Pilgrimage, two years ago. Whatever 'normal' was now, that is. Before she'd left, her life had consisted of keeping the _Rayya_ in working order, fixing whatever wasn't working, double-checking what was and tinkering around with what might have been left over. The _Rayya_ itself was about a hundred years old, not their oldest by far, but certainly something to keep an eye on. She'd been so eager to get off the ship, out of the Fleet and go see the galaxy. Even though the Pilgrimage was dangerous indeed, as quite a few quarians never returned, the rewards of the galaxy and upon return were well worth the risk.

But, when Tali returned, nothing was like she had imagined. No sense of glory, no feeling of utmost triumph, no thrill at being chosen to work aboard a new ship. But that may have simply been because it had been too soon since the funeral. There was a two week gap between it and her return, and even then it hadn't been long enough. Her father had been quite worried, but she managed to convince him that this was a problem she could need to work out on her own.

And this time? When she came back this time, she had been quite a bit shell-shocked, but had managed to hide just how much turmoil she was in. How, after all, do you react to a dead man coming back to life?

Tali hadn't talked to anyone else about it. The circumstances of Shepard's return were jaw-dropping as it was without throwing in her feelings for him. Better to keep it all in the dark, she reasoned, than to have the rumor mill start up on one of the juiciest pieces of gossip ever at her expense.

Still, she did had ways of coping. At nights, when everyone else was asleep in their bunks, and she needed to hear his voice one more time, she'd sometimes play recordings from Freedom's Progress. Just listening to the words he had spoken to her…

"_I'm sorry I left."_

At that point, she would pause the recording and reply "It doesn't matter now. You're alive. You're back. That's all that's important."

Some nights, however, there were other data files she would play. Lifted security from the first _Normandy_, a news report from the Citadel featuring Shepard slamming an elbow into the face of that same obnoxious reporter who had done that horrid smear job on him years ago, (the newer report had put a smile on her face as she watched the bitch hit the floor), and various other things she had downloaded to her omni-tool.

But there was one she cherished most of all. It reminded her of the 'old days' when they were riding high on their victory over Sovereign and Saren.

* * *

_He leaned in, tapping the camera doubtfully._

"_You realize that this thing is probably about a hundred years old, right?"_

_He looked back at Tali, who chuckled as she manipulated the settings from her omni-tool._

"_Ken, I hope –you- realize that the age of an item usually has nothing to do with its performance? That camera has never been used."_

_Shepard stood, his face rising out of the camera's view, his voice still doubtful._

"_I don't understand why you had to buy this, anyway. Why can't you just record from your omni-tool?"_

_She tilted her head from over where she was leaning against his desk, and you could just tell she was raising a thin eyebrow behind that visor._

"_The omni-tool is –not- a camera. It can scan, hack, store, upload, download, access the extranet, all that good stuff, but you need another source for the actual video source itself. Surely you're not –that- dense?"_

_He shrugged, moving over to the quarian and wrapping an arm around her shoulders as he too leaned against the desk._

"_Eh, fuck it. Let's do this recording."_

"_Fine."_

_She turned to the camera, as if looking at an audience, and waved, a little unsure of what she was doing, but still confident. After all, this –was- her idea._

"_Hey! Tali here! I was thinking, since my Pilgrimage is winding down, I should record –something- at least to remind me of my time here."_

_Ken chuckled, grinning as he looked down at her and joked "What, you're gonna forget me that fast? -Thaaaanks- Tali."_

_In response, she smacked him on the arm, but you could tell she was smiling behind her helmet anyways._

"_You baby. Go ahead, introduce yourself!"_

"_Aw, c'mon! Gimme –some- credit! You'll know who I am!"_

"_KEN!"_

"_See, you did it for me. Now I don't have to say shit."_

_She groaned, a hand coming to her forehead in exasperation. Obviously, this wasn't a new aggravation._

"_Just SAY THE DAMN INTRO!"_

"_Alright, alright…y'know, you're kinda sexy when you take charge and get angry."_

_The effect of his words was instant. Tali's hand came down cautiously, a fist lightly clenched as it came to rest on her chest, her head turned to peer, undoubtedly, quizzically at the Spectre. The human seemed oblivious, however, grinning as he did a short wave at the camera. Or maybe he just knew what he was causing._

"_Hey. Ken Shepard. Spectre. Former marine. That good?"_

_The question itself was directed at Tali, and she nodded, leaning in and taking the limelight once again._

"_So, you're probably wondering why I'm making a recording of myself."_

"_Actually, you're probably not. If you're looking at it at all, you'll know why."_

"_Ken, shut UP!"_

_She sighed again, shaking her head lightly as he shrugged._

"_What? I'm just sayin'. Memories are good and all, but you'll know why you're watching this. You'll be trying to remember your time aboard the __Normandy__, yeah?"_

"…_Ken, really, just shut up and let me do the damn recording."

* * *

_

Tali felt a few tears coming to her eyes as she remembered that one data tape. She still had it on her omni-tool, even though she'd copied it and uploaded that to her personal workstation aboard the _Neema._ Even though Ken was alive again in one of the strangest circumstances ever (Cerberus, of all people! The irony was so thick, it could be cut with a knife…), it still felt like he was gone. Hell, he may as –well- be dead…

No. She shook her head at herself, her hands halting in their automated task of replacing a burnt out circuit and its surrounding wires. Ken Shepard –was- alive again, and he hadn't forgotten her. How could he, after all? It hadn't been that long to him, after all.

She'd wait for him. Now that there was the chance he would come around and find her again, she'd stick out the time waiting for him to come and find her. She'd been half ready to hop onto the _Normandy_ back at Freedom's Progress if he had asked, but Veetor needed to be taken to safety after all.

"Tali'zorah?"

The voice behind her startled her so badly that her hands, which were still in the process of holding the wires, snapped together, delivering a mild electrical charge into her arm, making her jump backwards as pain lanced down the limb.

"Ahhh! Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow…"

Tali turned from rubbing her arm and working off the literal and figurative shock, looking up at Gola, who had tilted her head in apprehension, unsure of exactly what was happening. Unfortunately, Tali was not in the mood for jokes.

"Gola, if you're just going to take more stupid cracks at me, you had better prepare to see if that suit can resist the vacuum of space."

The venom in her voice was practically palpable, and the other quarian took a step backwards in wariness, obviously still scrambling for words.

"Uh…the captain says he has a message for you. He'd rather deliver it in person, but you weren't answering your comms."

Tali's demeanor instantly, changed, and she stood brushing herself off as she asked "Alright. Thank you. Did he say who its from?"

"Yes, he did. He thought it would get you there with all haste. Apparently, it's from the Admiralty Board."

(Finally! I FINALLY got this one hammered out! Damn, filler chapters are actually much harder than I thought…

Review please!! Even though its the shortest one and I'll have to make it up to you all!)


	7. Phantoms of the Mind

(A/N: *wipes mouth* Seriously guys, if you keep fattening up my pride and ego, I'm going to explode! My god, I can't even go ahead and mention my thanks to any specific person because there are so many of you!! Still, the feedback you've been giving me –has- been useful…those of you who aren't too busy apparently having their heads explode to give me critiques. Apologies for the gap between updates, my documents got infected with a virus and I've been busy battling it in what feels like Joker trying to keep the first _Normany_ afloat…nevertheless! Here is the next chapter!)

**You Don't Hear the Bullet**

**Phantoms of the Mind  
**

Two Days Later

Aboard the _Normandy II_

"_Listen up, maggots! I am Gunnery Chief Ellison, Senior Drill Instructor here at Macapa Recruit Training Depot! As of right now, you will look upon me as if I were God almighty himself, and the first and last words out of your mouth with be 'sir,' do you understand that?!"_

"_Sir, yes sir."_

"_BULLSHIT, I CAN'T HEAR YOU!! SOUND OFF LIKE YOU GOT A PAIR AND DON'T HAVE THEM SHOVED UP YOUR ASS SOMEWHERE!!"_

"_SIR, YES SIR!"_

_Ellison smirked, nodding as he looked the two lines of recruits over, standing up to their ankles in mud and with rain pelting them on their heads._

"_That's even worse than pathetic, but it'll do. Now! I suppose you all thought you'd be in the barracks getting this run down because of the rain, RIGHT?!"_

"_SIR, YES SIR!"_

"_WRONG!! There will be no relaxing, goldbricking, slacking off, or mercy here at this facility. It is –my- job to weed out those among you who cannot hack it! As such, I will not play favorites or show kindness or compassion. You are pukes, scum, maggots, the lowest of the low. You aren't even human fucking beings as of now! Until I see you walking out of those gates towards that shuttle with a true uniform on, that is –all- you will be, got that?!"_

"_SIR, YES SIR!"_

_Ellison snorted, smirking as he felt the rain smacking against his helmet. He would at least head back to his rack with nothing more than slight chills at worst. But a lot of the recruits would have colds for a few days._

"_YOU! Recruit! What's your name?"_

"_Sir, Private Shepard, sir!"_

"_Shepard, eh? And what did you do before you came here?"_

"_Sir, my family were farmers, sir!"_

"_That right? And were you a good little farm boy and help your folks while they tried to work their lives out of the ground?"_

"_Sir, yes sir!"_

"_Well, guess what, Shepard?! You're not courting your fucking cousins in the wheat fields anymore! Got that?!"_

"_Sir, yes sir!"_

"_Why did you join my beloved Marine Corps, Shepard?"_

"_Sir, to pay back the batarians for burning down my home, sir!"_

"_So you just came here for revenge against one enemy?! I assume you happen to know in that stupid excuse for a brain you have in your skull that the Alliance is beset by opponents from all sides! Or are you just some ignorant fucking idiot like most of the people who come through here?!"_

"_Sir, I'm prepared to kill whoever comes at me, sir!"_

"_OH REALLY?!"_

_Ellison drew a fist back, slamming it into Shepard's stomach and knocking the breath out of the poor kid. To his credit, the young redhead managed to stay on his feet, albeit with an expression of intense pain on his face and a few coughs to try and restart his interrupted respiration system. Although striking a recruit was technically against military protocol, several officers at facilities all throughout Alliance space still did it to turn out a harder, tougher Marine.  
_

"_You need to be ready to get up and kick the ass of whatever kind of oppositional force comes at you, Shepard! You are a sorry fucking excuse for a Marine! You're a sorry fucking excuse for even the worthless piece of shit that you are right now! You wanna tell me why you decided to stain my beloved corps by joining?!"_

_Shepard's face twisted in fury, and he bellowed back, seemingly just as loud as Ellison, "SIR, I JOINED BECAUSE I HATE JACKASSES LIKE YOU, SIR!!"_

_Shockingly, Ellison smirked, straightening up again and nodding slowly._

"_We'll see, Shepard. We'll see."

* * *

_

His eyes opened, blinking in the low, bluish light from his fish tank. It took him a few seconds to realize where he was, safe aboard the _Normandy II_, but even then he didn't move. He just stared at the ceiling as he pondered his life, his situation, his entire reason for even being out here right now. Y'know, boring stuff like that.

Cerberus had pieced him back together. But there was something more. The Illusive Man certainly acted like he was free to do as he wanted, and Kenneth could understand the security devices everywhere, but the former Marine could tell that there was something else the leader of the rogue black ops unit wanted. Something more than just fighting the Collectors and the Reapers. Probably thought he would call in a favor sometime, a whole 'we revived you and gave you this ship so do us something extreme like a good little dog' sort of deal.

"I'm not washing anyone's back just cause they washed mine…" Shepard muttered, rubbing his stubble-covered jaw with the palm of one hand. He sat up, groaning as he felt a few of his wounds from Horizon stretch a bit. Those Scions were tough business, easily able to shrug off the plasma required to kill a tank. Hell, he'd gone through all his missiles just to take down two of the armored Husk behemoths.

He swung his legs over the side of his bed, not bothering to make the sheets. It was still very early, and he intended to come back.

He yawned, widely, as he tugged on his Cerberus officer's uniform. No one else aboard the _Normandy_ wore it, so he was easily recognizable.

He slumped down into his chair, accessing his private terminal to check his extranet messages. A cheat message to try and get into his bank accounts, a chain letter about a dying drell being cured of some syndrome through religion, an advertisement for male enhancement…he paused at that one before chuckling and deleting that one too.

His eyes glanced up at his ship models, tracing over the various crafts he had collected from different souvenir stores…he stared hard at the _Normandy_ _I_ and her sister above her. He still found it hard to believe everything had changed. Two years of his life, stolen from him, and everyone around him had moved on.

He smiled as he looked over at Tali's picture next to his Medal of Honor, rewarded for bravery and skill during the assault on Torfan.

"Not everyone's forgotten me," he muttered, still smiling. Joker was even now at the helm of the new ship, and seemed to love the Cerberus version of his 'baby' as much as her predecessor. Garrus was down at the forward batteries, drooling over the new turian pulse guns they'd installed. Shepard never understood why Garrus hadn't replaced his mangled armor alongside having Chakwas repair his head. Sentimental value, maybe? It –was- the same armor he'd worn when they'd taken out Saren, after all.

And Liara, and Chakwas, and Anderson…he still had allies and friends. He hadn't been so easily killed as to remain in obscurity.

He rose, moving to the elevator and punching the button to engineering. He knew that the engineers Kenneth Donnelly and Gabby Daniels would still be up. Those two were like machines themselves, though Shepard suspected that Donnelly's jokes were probably keeping Gabby from getting bored and sleepy.

The Scottish man had gotten a real kick when he'd realized he shared a first name with the infamous Commander Shepard. His comments had ranged along the lines of "someone switched us as birth, -I'm- the real galactic hero!" to the rank of "If I say you and I are related, maybe I'll get more chicks in the pubs!"

Donnelly was alright, though. And rather protective of Gabby too. Through some not so subtle hints, the engineer had told the Marine to keep his hands off his best friend, "or else someone else's daddybags are gonna get kicked." Of course, once Shepard had explained Tali to him, Donnelly had gotten immense glee out of teasing his superior officer about being a "bucket lover."

As the doors slid open, Shepard was surprised to find the engine room itself empty. Ken and Gabby must have knocked off for the night, though judging by the rings of dried brown liquid on the console, they'd chugged through caffeine to try and fight it off.

Kenneth's dress shoes audibly clicked their way over to the drive core, and his back tilted him forward to lean on his arms, staring up at the core. Lately, he'd felt like his mind and body weren't quite in the same realm, like there was some sort of separation between the two. He went through the motions, still, cleaning his weapons and talking to the crew, but it was just habit now, and his heart wasn't in it.

Horizon was still haunting him, casting his mind back into the past.

* * *

_Delan rushed forward, falling to his knees as he shook a fist at the sky._

"_No!" he snarled, as though that would stop the ship. "You gotta stop 'em!"_

_Kenneth Shepard looked up, exasperated, from the puncture in his thigh. Damned Collector Praetorian had cut through his shields like butter, lining up a shot for a sole surviving Drone. Of course, both were dead now, with a few clouds of armor-piercing buckshot in their corpses for good measure._

_ Jack looked over at the mechanic, yelling "Hey! Dipshit! In case you didn't realize it, we're on the ground, and that ship is fucking enormous! Think next time, why don'cha?"_

_Garrus shook his head, leaning close to Shepard and saying, quietly so as to not risk dismemberment "I thought you said we wanted to rescue survivors."_

"_I did." Shepard grunted as he stood once more, having packed the wound in his leg with medi-gel, knowing full well where the turian rebel was going with this._

"_Then why bring the psychopath convict who single-handedly tore apart a ship the size of a dreadnought?"_

_Shepard ignored him, limping forward as he tried to talk sense into the crazed colonist, who was currently pacing and yelling "They got half the colony up there! Lilith! Tony! Everyone!" He spun around, his eyes crazed, his expression livid. "It's the Alliance's fault! Set up those damn defense towers and made us a target! When I get my hands around that fucking Alliance rep's throat, I'm gonna-"_

_What he was 'gonna' do was swiftly silenced, however, as a vicious right hook slammed into the man's cheek, sending Delan sprawling to the ground._

"_Show a little fucking respect!" Ken snarled, his knuckles bloody from cutting the mechanic. "At least they're trying to help you! Dammit, you're so concerned about them looking over your shoulder that you can't even see that the people who are fighting to save your ass are the exact same ones you're laying all these conspiracy theories on!"_

_Delan struggled up into a sitting position, his cheek and lip bleeding, fear in his eyes now._

"_Wait, I'm sorry! Honestly, I didn't-"_

"_I DON'T FUCKING CARE!! WE COME DOWN HERE, SAVE MORE PEOPLE FROM THE COLLECTORS THAN ANYONE EVER BEFORE, AND YOU WANT TO LAY BLAME ON THE SAME PEOPLE WHO ARE FIGHTING –FOR- US!!"_

_Shepard was right in the colonist's face now, a fist at his throat._

"_I'm beginning to regret leaving survivors!"_

_Garrus' hands suddenly clasped onto Ken's shoulders, pulling him back and off the mechanic, saying "Shepard, don't. Leave him. He's scum, he's not worth it."_

_Jack had an eyebrow perked, watching the outburst with something quickly approaching amusement._

_Delan coughed, staring up at the former-Spectre and muttering. "Shepard…I know that name."_

"_Commander Kenneth Shepard," said a female voice from the side, snapping everyone's attention around. "Butcher of Torfan, Captain of the Normandy, first human Spectre, Saviour of the Citadel."_

_A woman in standard issue Aldrin Labs Onyx armor stepped forward, a Hahne-Khadar Lancer IV assault rifle held in her hand. Her red hair was short, cut to her ears, and her ice-blue eyes were full of a chill that reached all the way to the rather sarcastic smile that graced her lips._

_Garrus' jaw dropped, Jack's other eyebrow shot down in a frown, and Shepard straightened, staring at the Alliance Marine._

"_Jeanette…cousin, is that you?"

* * *

_

Swiftly, he cast all thoughts of Horizon from his mind, trying desperately to bring himself back to the present. He needed to put his past behind him and move on, or else he'd never get the mission completed.

Still, as he stood up and turned away from the reactor, he could almost tangibly imagine Tali standing next to him, her voice almost really there, saying _"It wasn't your fault. You did everything you could. On Horizon –and- before. No one has any right to blame you."_

"That's what I keep telling myself," he muttered, sighing before he said, again to the empty silence he knew was where his imagined Tali was, "I still don't believe me."

She shook her head, and he could almost feel her hands as she rubbed his shoulder.

"_That's my Ken. Always thinking he could have done more."_

He smiled. Even if she was only here in his imagination, he could still enjoy his time with her. He reached up, his hand about to grasp hers…

"_**Bridge to Commander Shepard."**_

Just like that, the pristine image evaporated like smoke. Tali was gone, and a solid metal wall was all that was left. He paused, his hand still hanging in midair above his shoulder, wishing with some vain hope that he could stretch the already broken fantasy a little longer…

"_**Bridge to Commander Shepard, come in Commander."**_

Ken sighed, his hand dropping before he reached up and keyed his headset radio.

"I'm here, Joker. What have you got?"

"_**We've pinpointed Tali's location in the system, sir. She's on a planet called Haestrom, and we've tracked about two dozen quarian comms signals on the surface. ETA, six hours."**_

"Roger that, Joker. I'll go get some rest."

(A/N: hope this will satisfy you guys and make up for the wait!)


	8. Blood For Bullets

(A/N: *looks up from table of reviews, his ego fat* Ah…you guys are back! I must say, I did indeed hurt myself a little bit with that delay. But I can happily say that the virus is exterminated and all important files (In other words, the ones for this fic) are all recovered! Now, all stupid giddiness aside, I have a very important question for you all, the reviewers! I've been considering adding a lemon chapter to this story (can't get enough bucket lovin', right?) and I think it would be well placed in here. Unfortunately, that would require me to move this fic to M rating, and I might lose some of you fabulous reviewers! So, in your next reviews, let me know what you think, and I'll take that into consideration!)

**You Don't Hear the Bullet**

**Blood For Bullets**

Eight Hours Later

Planet Haestrom, Quarian Colony Warehouse Hub

Outside the Observatory

The Colossus swung its head around, tracking the small organics that were rushing it once more. It's cannon would make short work of their foolish ambitions, and several systems began blaring as the power cells in the gauss cannon charged up. The shields were suddenly lit up in a glorious cascade of color as more shots smacked into them. If geth could laugh, the Colossus would be chuckling in patient glee.

The enormous walkers' point-defenses lit up, smacking the ground around Shepard's feet as he slid behind the crate, feeling his own shields flicker. _'The center way gives you cover, but you're in full view of the Colossus!'_ Kal'Reegar's words rang through his head, and Kenneth Shepard kicked himself for not taking the left side. At least that way, they would just have to boil their way through a few dozen infantry platforms, right?

No. Instead, he just –had- to go down the center line, only to get penned in and surrounded with additional fire support from above. Brilliant move, Shepard. You fucking idiot.

He rose again, feeling the Katana shotgun buck in his hands as he emptied another round of shot towards the knot of advancing geth, watching with some satisfaction as at least two fell to the ground screaming. Or whatever they did when they made those sounds…

Zaeed was next to him, jamming another heat sink into his Viper sniper rifle and snarling "Oh sure, let's go down the bloody fuckin' center! We can take anything the geth can throw at us, let's not listen to the fuckin' wounded quarian Marine back there!"

"Shut it, Massani!" Shepard retorted, firing his shotgun in one hand and pulling his Carnifex with the other, blasting an armor-piercing slug into the face of a geth destroyer platform, making the synthetic slam heavily to the ground. Garrus fired a burst from his battle rifle on the other side of their little fortress of crates, switching with incredible speed between targets, thanks to that visor of his. Shepard had bought one of his own on Omega, but what the stupid elcor hadn't told him was that it was totally useless in combat save for acting as a scope.

Maybe he'd go back and break Harrot's legs after all, Shepard decided…

The turian ducked under another burst of fire, clapping a hand on the ex-Spectre's shoulder. "Commander! It's do or die time! We're low on thermal clips and we're surrounded! We can't hold this position, and unless we do something drastic soon, we're going to get penned in!"

"Shut up and keep firing!" yelled Kenneth, setting his shotgun and hand cannon back on their magnetic racks again and pulling Warden Kuril's machine gun from off his back. "I'll think of something!"

However, even as he depressed the trigger, hosing down the robotic army in front of him and listening to the spent heat sinks hit the ground, all that Shepard could think of…

* * *

_Tali was staring at him, hard. He knew it, even if he could just barely see her eyes through the facemask. 'Stupid,' he thought, suddenly realizing how much of an idiot he had been. One, why had he decided to ask it as though it were the topic of a term paper, and two, why did he even say it in the first place?_

_To her credit, Tali recovered quickly, albeit shakily. "Ah…uh…that depends on the…er, situation, I suppose. What…what are you asking?"_

"_Well, I mean you guys are in those suits all the time, right?"_

"_Yes, but-"_

"_So you can't really physically do anything like kiss or whatnot-"_

"_Shepard, you're starting to babble-"_

"_So do you just come out and say it or-"_

"_SHEPARD!"_

_He blinked, realizing just how fast he had begun to speak. That wasn't like him. He'd never used speech as a screen against apprehension._

"…_thanks, Tali."_

_She nodded, limping over to him again._

"_Now. Start over, and don't turn into me. That's not the way you handle problems, and you and I both know it."_

_He chuckled, reaching up with his uninjured hand and rubbing his forehead. He could feel the adrenaline in his veins, and had to laugh at himself for the situation. Here he was, Mister Badass Marine, the Butcher of Torfan, the Hero of Eden Prime, First Human Spectre and Saviour of the Citadel…getting first time jitters about asking a girl out. Granted, this girl was completely amazing to him, and an alien who couldn't ever kiss him, but the irony of the situation was finally combining with the wear on his nerves, and he just couldn't take it anymore._

_He laughed._

_He laughed long and hard, and after his mental breakdown mere minutes ago, the sensation of air being robbed from his lungs once more practically stung. Still, he kept laughing as the last few days caught up to him. The nightmares, the memories…and this situation._

_ Of course, Tali didn't really take it that way. The quarian straightened up, huffing a little._

"_Well, if all you're going to do is toy with my emotions, then maybe studying the ship isn't worth staying onboard!"_

_She turned, obviously offended, and he realized what he'd done._

"_Tali! Wait!"_

_He leapt off the bed, reaching for her, the apology on the tip of his tongue-

* * *

_

"Commander! I see an opening!"

Shepard snapped his head around, the visor zooming in on the spot Garrus was indicating. Indeed, it seemed as though the geth coming from the right side of the walkways had decided to go another route, and the way was clear!

"Counter-attack up the ramp! C'mon, push push push!" he yelled, slamming a new thermal clip home into the machine gun. Zaeed certainly wasted no time, leaping over a box and slamming the stock of his Avenger assault rifle into an unlucky geth's head. The merc was getting on in years (not that he'd ever admit it), but he still had what it took to deliver a painful ass-kicking to the teeth. The veteran spun around, releasing tight bursts of fire into the geth chasing after Shepard and Garrus as they moved to advance as well. The corridor was closing, more geth were coming around the partition overhead to flank them and cut off their escape.

"GO! Keep moving!" yelled Shepard, blasting another geth trooper to pieces as he ran, the trigger jammed down tight and his aim focused on the ridge above him. Anything that wound up in his sights swiftly received an armor piercing round to the head or chest, and even if the hits wouldn't be fatal to an organic, they tore off arms and necks and other chunks from the synthetic troopers, sending pieces flying everywhere and effectively taking them out of the fight.

Garrus was the first to the ramp. He immediately spun around, battle rifle to his shoulder as he placed precise, accurate bursts of shots into the pursuing geth. Zaeed arrived next, doing the same in a slightly more haphazard and fully automatic way.

"Massani!" yelled Shepard, tossing the machine gun to the mercenary. Without batting an eyelash, Zaeed dropped the now empty assault rifle and caught the heavier weapon, firing a long burst of suppressing, armor-piercing slugs. Chunks flew off the stonework, metal plates were smashed from geth bodies, shields flared and cybernetic whines almost drowned out the gunfire.

Shepard stormed up the ramp, shotgun in hand again, screaming in fury as he almost single-handedly charged the Colossus, which would have worn an expression of shock if it were capable of emotions…

* * *

She could hear the firefight outside. Not from the Marines. She knew they had long been killed off. No, it had to be Shepard. The explosions, yells and immense amount of gunfire could only be coming from a heavily-armed group of commandos. Kenneth Shepard was a walking army in his own right all by himself, and to bring along two others with him…you'd need to be crazy to try and take him on.

Or have hundreds of reinforcements and no fear of death, she reminded herself, remembering just who their opponent was.

Tali bit her lip, trying to fight off her apprehension. This was Kenneth Shepard she was talking about! The man who had ripped through the Thorian and its creeper minions like a force of nature! The man who had stared down a squad of asari commandos with nothing but a shotgun and a snarl. The man who had fought Saren and won.

Still…he was outnumbered, outgunned, outmaneuvered even. The solar radiation from Haestrom's sun made standing in the direct sunlight like frying an ant with a magnifying glass, as the human phrase went. Against odds like that, she wondered if perhaps he was too in over his head to win…

No. This –was- Ken Shepard, and he –would- win, like he always did. No matter the challenge, the opposition, the numbers, he always slammed his way through. N7, she had found out, didn't let just anyone apply. The Alliance Special Forces didn't give a damn about service records or medals. They only cared about raw talent and the will to use it.

Or, at least, that's what she had learned. The files she'd curiously hacked back on the original Normandy hadn't exactly been too forthcoming about special forces and their doctrine or training.

Another explosion rent the air outside, and her head turned involuntarily, half-expecting Ken Shepard to blast the door down in order to reach her. No such luck, as it turned out, and she almost sighed, feeling her anxiety climbing once more. Unfortunately, as happens to most of us, when Tali felt anxious by herself, she began to reach back into the past, remembering the events that led up to this one moment, here and now…

* * *

_-his hand gently gripped her arm, and she stopped. Of course, it wasn't like she had much choice. His definition of 'gently' was like a vice-grip to her, and Tali knew she wouldn't be able to break it._

"_Tali, I didn't…I wasn't laughing at you," Shepard said, moving around to stand in front of her, rubbing at his still wet eyes. "I just…everything's caught up with me, I guess. I'm sorry, alright?"_

_She rolled her eyes behind her helmet, luckily something he couldn't see. Having realized her overreaction, she nodded. "Alright, you're forgiven. Look, I'm not quite sure what to say to your question either. I mean…I think I need a little time, is all."_

_Shepard flinched, and she could tell she'd wounded him a bit. But this was a big step they were both going to take, and she needed to make sure neither one of them was making a huge in-the-moment mistake. After the release of so much pent-up emotion and letting his guard down like that, Shepard could be half-delirious._

_Nevertheless, he nodded back, saying "Alright. You call me down when you want to talk. Okay?"_

_His intent didn't seem to have been fully unhooked, it seemed. That was good, it meant this might be more than just some spur of the moment crush. Still, to console him, she placed a hand on his arm, wishing she could smile up at him but knowing he'd never see it. He caught the meaning, however, and nodded again, stepping aside and allowing her to limp out…

* * *

_

KA-BOOOM!!

This time, the explosion was right –inside- the observatory, and Tali was slammed into the control panel by the force of the blast, delirious for a few crucial seconds before she finally managed to pick herself up, hand going for her revolver as she spun around to face whatever geth had finally gotten through. The Colossus must have finished off everyone else, she knew it, and now they had managed to blast their way in without any distractions.

She thumbed back the hammer, both hands up at the grip of the weapon as she watched for movement, waiting…hoping…

A flash of color! She pulled the trigger, and the gun fired, sending the solid slug whistling through the air towards her target-

And bouncing off Garrus' shields.

The turian stopped, staring down at his chest with a furrowed brow before looking back up at the horrified quarian.

"Well…that's a nice way to say hello."

"Garrus! Oh, Keelah, I'm so sorry!"

The rebel put up his hands to ward off her apologies.

"No, don't worry about it. No harm done. Good reaction time, actually. And you can't be blamed either, we didn't make the most polite job of knocking on the door."

Another human came around the corner, and her arms raised a little as she moved forward, half-expecting it to be Shepard she was about to embrace, but she stopped herself as she spotted the graying hair, the immensely scarred face, and the mismatched eyes.

Zaeed Massani chuckled. "Quite friendly, isn't she," he commented to Garrus. "Coming forward to hug a complete stranger with a gun in her hand?"

The former C-Sec officer returned the laughter, lightly slugging the mercenary in the shoulder. Tali felt the heat rising in her cheeks, and she slowly holstered the revolver, preferring to not risk another 'friendly fire' situation.

"She's friendly alright," said a voice that made her head snap back up in recognition. "Practically leapt into my arms once she found out I was going after Saren."

There couldn't be any mistaking it! His hair had grown a little in the weeks since they had met on Freedom's Progress, and the scars on his cheeks had healed a bit, but the red-haired man in black N7 armor leaning against the wall was Ken Shepard for sure!

"Ken!" she blurted out, moving forward to hug the correct human this time. He chuckled low in his throat as he returned the embrace, his arms wrapping around her shoulders tightly.

"Aaaah, it's good to see you again, Tali."

"How do you think I feel?" she retorted, finally slipping out of his grasp, glancing over at the unknown human.

"Oh, right, sorry." Shepard clapped a hand onto the merc's shoulders, grinning as he said "Tali, this sour, stubborn old piece of crap is the galaxy's best bounty hunter, Zaeed Massani."

A punch to the ribs, and Ken backed off, chuckling.

"Fuck you too, Shepard," replied Zaeed, his tone light but his hand still fisted.

To her credit, Tali had run into many characters on her travels, and meeting your atypical mercenary was no big thing for her. Hell, she'd fought against the Blood Pack once, and managed to come through it relatively unscathed.

Still, seeing the trio reminded her of someone very important outside. "Is Kal'Reegar alright?"

Shepard frowned, turning to Garrus, who shook his head in reply. "No go, Commander. I checked the channels. If he's not dead, he will be soon."

Shepard nodded sadly turning back to the quarian. "I'm sorry, Tali."

In reply, she just sighed and replied "Let's just go. I've had enough of this place. I just hope this data was worth the lives we lost."

* * *

(A/N: Remember, let me know! Lemon or not?!)


	9. Peace or War

(A/N: Okay! I have generously taken all your words and advice (and curses that I killed off Reegar! C'mon, this is –my- fic! *pouts*) and determined…

Congratulations! There will be a lemon in the next few chapter!

*blows air horn*

Unfortunately, that means that when I –do- publish it, this fic will be rated 'M'. Fair warning to you all!

For now, enjoy the latest chapter!)

**You Don't Hear the Bullet**

**Peace or War  
**

Two Days Later

Aboard the _Normandy II_

"So Gabby. What do ya think of our new quarian boss?"

Donnelly raised an eyebrow at his cousin, who gasped silently, frowning as she muttered "Hush! She's right over there!"

Tali smiled a little, realizing that Ken Donnelly, with his limited knowledge on quarians, wouldn't have realized that the microphones on her bio-suit were fine tuned to pick out even a whisper from around a corner. This should be interesting…

The Scot scoffed, returning "Ah, she can't hear us with her head in that bucket. Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful bucket."

Tali grit her teeth, eyes narrowed as she realized exactly where this conversation was heading, and turned to glare at the engineers through her faceplate. But, surprise of all surprises, as she was about to voice her objections, her eyes snapped to the door sliding silently open behind the engineers, and who else would walk in at that exact moment but Commander Kenneth Shepard, the raised eyebrow and half-amused expression on his face saying that he had heard the entire conversation. He smirked, holding a finger up to his lips, indicating she should be quiet for now. She grinned and nodded a little to show she understood.

And Donnelly? To his credit, he was too wrapped up in dividing his attention between talking to Gabby and working the console before him to notice something was awry. "The whole suit is lovely. Quite…snug in all the right places."

It was here that Shepard grinned and nodded over at Tali, and she scrunched up her face as she tried to keep the humor out of her voice, failing for the first attempt, but managing for the second one. "You –know- I can hear you."

The effect was priceless. Donnelly's face blanked out, his eyes widening in surprise as Gabby chuckled at the Scotsman's expense. But the best part was yet to come.

"And so can I," remarked Shepard, standing literally just behind the troublesome duo. Again, to hilarious results as Donnelly spun around, fumbling for an explanation as to why he was ogling what had officially been labeled by the crew as 'Shepard's Turf.' Much to both Tali and Shepard's annoyance.

"Commander! I-uh…you-"

"Are messing with you," Shepard chuckled, stepping forward and lightly slugging Donnelly in the arm. "Keep it together, Ken. You can get new underwear in a bit."

"You-but…oh, fer Chrissakes…"

Donnelly shook his head, a hand over his heart as he tried to get over his scare, his cousin laughing gleefully at his expense. Shepard strolled lazily over to Tali, a self-satisfied smirk on his face. Tali cocked her head, the sign they had inadvertently used to express that she was raising an eyebrow.

"Do I have to take you down a few pegs?"

He shrugged, waving a hand dismissively.

"Nah, I'll get over myself in a few minutes. I just couldn't resist doing that, is all. You should have seen him last week when I beat him at Skyllian Five poker. He at least took his defeat…gracefully, if not richly."

Tali rolled her eyes, chuckling as she leaned against the panel. "Seriously, stop being so full of yourself."

He held up both hands in a gesture of submission. "Alright, alright. Sorry about that. I'm totally my assholish self again."

Tali smacked his shoulder playfully. "There you go. Just the way I want you.

Gabby peered over at the quarian and the ex-Spectre as they laughed and chatted flirtatiously, feeling a smile coming to her lips.

"My God…they make such a cute couple!"

Her cousin grunted, barely sparing them a glance as he worked. "Troublesome is more like it, if you ask me."

Gabby punched him lightly in the ribs, smiling smugly as he glared at her. "You're just sour that Shepard won five-hundred credits off you at your own game."

"'Be gentle on the rookie,'" mimicked Ken, making air quotes to show how much he had disliked the trick. "I can't believe we fell for that."

"It was –so- worth it to see you taken down a notch! Besides, why can't you be happy for them? If anyone deserves to find someone, it's Shepard. The things he's gone through…"

Both engineers lapsed into silence as they recounted the tales of one of the Marines from the _SSV Perugia_, a man who hadn't been in Shepard's squad, but had been part of the ground assault force to hit Torfan…

* * *

"_Shepard! Shepard! Shepard, wake up!"_

_Staff Lieutenant Shepard blinked blearily, his head pounding and the sound of weapons fire rattling in his ears, through which he could feel the blood rushing through his head. His eyes opened at last, and he grimaced at the light, squinting before opening his eyes fully once more._

_It wasn't a very good sight._

_He was still in the drop shuttle, a Grizzly variant in use by the Alliance, and could see weapons fire lighting up the darkness outside. The deep thump of human solid slug weapons was contrasting against the sharp rattle of mass effect guns, and it was obvious that the Marines were all penned down._

_An Alliance soldier noticed he was awake, grabbing a second assault rifle and hustling towards the platoon commander, tossing the AR67 and yelling "Take this and stay down!" Shepard blearily caught the gun, rising with a grunt as he felt several bruises along his body cry out in indignation. Nevertheless, he had to keep moving._

_He ran out at a crouch with the Marine, making it to a wall of wreckage behind which the rest of the men that had been with him were crouching. They had taken light casualties so far, only six men down from combat for now. Out of twenty-five, that wasn't so bad._

_He crouched down next to a wounded Gunnery Chief firing his shotgun one-handed over the barricade, pulling at the NCO's shoulder. "What's the situation?" he yelled out over the gunfire._

"_We're totally surrounded sir! Just came down here in this shuttle bay, so we've got lots of open room, but the batarian bastards are coming at us from all sides!"_

_Shepard peered up, over the edge, just as a round smacked into the crate mere inches from his head. He ducked back down, double checking his assault rifle before popping back up, firing in bursts through the clipped on scope attached to the top rail. But of course, as happens with all weapons, you have to reload once the clip runs out._

_Shepard pulled the spent magazine out, replacing it with a new one as the Marines kept up their wall of fire, suppressed by not only batarians, but also turians, vorcha, krogan and even asari or other humans. The traitors…_

_The charge continued, with the pirates getting closer and closer with every wave through attrition, finally coming to almost point blank range before a massive rank of krogan and vorcha slammed into the line, claws and fists flying, shotguns and pistols booming. Severely outgunned at range, the Marines were no match at close quarters. But they still fought back. More shotguns fired, sidearms desperately drawn, stocks of rifles swung in a fit of survival rage._

_Shepard was backhanded by a krogan, sent flying across the wreckage blockade, smacking into a wall on the other side. The brute approached him once again, and the lieutenant began crawling away, dazed and still trying to escape, when his hand closed around the steel haft of a discarded sledgehammer…

* * *

_

_**"Bridge to Commander Shepard"**_ declared Joker over the loudspeaker abruptly, bringing the ex-Spectre's eyes up to the ceiling, eyebrows frowning. _**"The Illusive Man wants to speak with you. Sounded urgent."**_

Kenneth Shepard rolled his eyes, sighing as he reached up, tugging at the collar of his uniform as he muttered "The insidious bastard…I swear to God, it's like he knows –exactly- when to interrupt me…"

"I take it you and he aren't on very good terms, then?" Tali asked rhetorically, crossing her arms under her breasts as she cocked her head again. Eyebrow raised, then.

"Nah," Shepard growled, shaking his head. "I'm not on good terms with Cerberus at all. Most of the crew on the _Normandy_ are alright, but I'll run into a few pricks in the field who still remember the whole thing with the research stations…as if I could forget what they did to Admiral Kahoku."

He didn't need to be able to see her face to know that Tali's expression wasn't a particularly happy one there…if looks could kill…

Lucky for Cerberus, Tali's face was always covered, or else everyone aboard would probably have died a horrible death at least once by now.

* * *

The Illusive Man gently ground out the spent tip of the cigarette in his ash tray, returning the smoke to his mouth and taking a puff as he swirled a glass of Kentucky Redeye Whiskey (2010 vintage, a very good flavor) in his other hand, studying the reports with a concerned frown. There was no doubt about it, this distress call was authentic. But for the Collectors to have appeared so close to Council space without warning was…alarming, to say the least. Still, they couldn't let this opportunity pass the by. If the ship's distress calls weren't being suppressed and intercepted, the stranded vessel would have already been rediscovered by a nearby patrol. As it was, they would only have hours before a scout stumbled across them.

The quantum entanglement communicator before him suddenly lit up, and his cybernetic eyes flicked over to the constructing particles. He dismissed the display before him, setting his cigarette down in its ashtray and taking a swig of his whiskey as he waited for Shepard's image to construct. Finally, the blank, red-haired visage of Kenneth Shepard finished constructing itself, and the ex-Spectre eyed the liquor before saying _"You have no idea how bad those drinks on Omega taste."_

The Illusive Man toasted Shepard with the whiskey before setting it down as well.

"I heard about the batarian. Bad business, that. But he deserved that toast you gave him. I also saw that you at least had a moment with Dr. Chakwas. Serrice Ice Brandy, Twenty-one forty-one. A decent year, and hard to find in such a back alley."

Shepard rolled his eyes, though that may have been the pixels distorting again.

"_Are you going to criticize my drinking, or is there something important you want to tell me?"_

The Cerberus leader brought his finger tips together, holding them in front of his face as he carefully chose his words.

"We may have just picked up a lead on the Collectors. But we have to act fast."

"_Another colony that they got slowed down at?"_

"Nothing so fortunate, no. Instead, we got something far less clear-cut." The Illusive Man brought up a holographic display, inverting it so Shepard could read it. "An hour ago, the _SSV Einstein_ suddenly sounded a distress call. Manual, with someone on the line yelling about being attacked by a cruiser-sized, mysterious vessel."

He saw Shepard stiffen, his eyes locked on the readouts.

"I'm aware of your connection with this ship, Shepard. The _Einstein_ got you off Mindoir when the batarians attacked. So you have to know that this can't be coincidence-"

"_What happened to the crewman on the distress channel?"_ asked Shepard, interrupting the Illusive Man with a cold, hard edge to his voice. Normally, he would have been irritated, but the Illusive Man understood this time, and let it slide.

"He got cut off. Seven and a half minutes later, an automated signal was sent out from a standard issue distress beacon, broadcasting on all channels."

"_And has the Alliance received this call yet?"_

"Not yet. We're busy at the moment trying to keep all channels locked down in the area –and- send false reports back to Alliance Command. The first distress call got partially through, and we're working through red tape to keep them occupied. It buys you more time, but we're running out of it. As good as we are, the Alliance isn't stupid. They'll know something's wrong."

"_And dispatch a patrol to investigate,"_ Shepard concluded, still staring at the readouts. Finally, however, the ex-Marine came to the same conclusion the Cerberus technicians had. _"The __Einstein__ didn't launch that beacon…at least, not one of the crewmen."_

"That's what we think as well. It's obviously a trap, and given your history with this ship, I'd say it's too much of a coincidence to not be the Collectors."

"_So we –know- we're walking into an ambush…at least we can prepare for it."_

"I thought you'd like to be informed of the situation."

Shepard turned his attention back to the Illusive Man, eyes still narrowed.

"_Yes…I do. Still…I can't help but feel like there's something you still want from me."_

The Illusive Man casually shrugged. "What I want still stands as it always has before. Defeat the Collectors. Stop the Reapers. Save humanity. For now though, board that carrier and find out what happened."

Shepard didn't look convinced.

"_Right. I'll keep that in mind."_

The connection terminated.

The Illusive Man turned lazily in his chair, retrieving his cigarette once more.

"One day, Shepard…your perception is going to be the death of you. Let's just hope it's not going to be now…"

* * *

(A/N: if none of you remember the _SSV Einstein_, do a little research. Not so hard to stir up the memory!)


	10. Knock Knock, This is Your Past Calling

(A/N: To all of you out there who are fattening my ego and making me one very, very happy man, I have a few things to say: 1), I'm not sure where I got the information that Gabby and Ken Donnelly were cousins, but it was from a few pages, and just stuck in my head.

2) I liked Kal'Reegar too! But a sensible soldier would have kept a combat capable soldier in the fight, especially if he was from the sidelines! It just made more sense to me.

Also, a little bit of a challenge: I'm basing the layout of the _Einstein_ off of two very famous ships in sci-fi history, from two very different shows. See if you can figure out which ones they are and what shows they are from and put it in your reviews!

Thanks for reading, and enjoy the next chapter!)

* * *

**You Don't Hear the Bullet**

**Knock Knock, This is Your Past Calling**

Eight Hours Later

Aboard the _Normandy II_

Exodus Cluster

Twenty Thousand Kilometers from Planet Zion

Yeoman Kelly Chambers was worried about Kenneth Shepard. The man was driven, possessed, focused with a single minded determination. While one could argue that he was usually like this and there was, therefore, no reason to worry, this behavior was unnatural. When Shepard was onboard the _Normandy_, he was relaxed, at ease, just like his psyche profile said.

Now, however, he was a crazed man. He kept going to the galaxy map and indicating a planet called Mindoir, but never reading the attached description or charting a course out there. According to all background reports, that was where Shepard had grown up before the batarians had enacted their scorched earth policy when they raided. Once the _SSV Einstein_ showed up and began deploying Marines and fighters, the batarians burned everything behind them as they fell back. Even the planet itself. Mindoir had recovered, of course. The seas were poison now, and the lands little more than ash, but the mines were still good, and scientists predicted that the world would be good for farming again in less than a decade.

This mattered little to Shepard. He never read the description, never looked for anything in particular, just stared at the hologram of the planet.

As if he was waiting for something…

* * *

"_C'mon, kid! We gotta move! They'll be on us in seconds if we stop!"_

_The snarling of varren, the hoarse laughter of the slavers, the report of weapons fire, both solid slug and mass effect._

_Legs burning._

_Lungs aching._

_Tears streaming._

_Screams everywhere.

* * *

_

The Kodiak pilot peered out at the _SSV Einstein_, staring at humanity's most famous space carrier. It consisted of a single long fuselage, like an enormous brick with a slimmer, narrower neck. More comparable to a duck laid out straight on a block before the butcher cut it up, actually. The flight pods were on either side, one-half pressurized bay to store fighters and interceptors, and one-half open space to act as runways and bring the crafts down on the mass effect fields.

His eyes traced over the port flight pod, wincing as he witnessed the damage that had been done. The entire assembly had been ripped off, eerily reminding him of the photos he'd seen of the wreckage of the original _Normandy_. The main weapon on that Collector ship had been examined from witness accounts and the system cameras, and was confirmed to be an enormous particle beam that cut through barriers and shields like butter. To see what they had done to a mighty Alliance vessel like the _Einstein_, though…was even worse.

The helm was hit as well, as though someone had taken a sniper rifle and scored a clean headshot. You could see straight through the hole, and the bodies of a few Alliance crewmen even drifted around it. Damage was evident everywhere else, such as the disabled engines, a few hits on the starboard flight pod, and the shattered remnants of several SF-109 fighters and SI-307 interceptors. More corpses, from the pilots who couldn't eject in time, drifted through space, evidently torn to ribbons. The Kodiak pilot felt his gut lurch a bit as he realized that the carnage that had been rent on every cadaver was still visible, the body of the soldier flattened from the vacuum.

"God, what a way to go…" he muttered, navigating around the gutted remnants of an Alliance UT-46 Grizzly shuttle. It was eerily similar to the next-generation UT-47 Kodiak, and conjured up bad images of the Collectors suddenly reappearing at any moment to visit the same kind of punishment on them, making the pilot push the engines just a little more to reach the carrier faster.

* * *

Tali was worried for Shepard.

Not something usually done, of course. The man was the best of the best, and had proven it time and again against whatever enemy he went up against. He'd defeated a Colossus single-handedly with a shotgun and a missile launcher, after all, back on Haestrom. If there was anyone in the galaxy who didn't need a 'good luck' from someone, it was Shepard.

But he was pale, his face taut and drawn, his eyes fixed rigidly on the window, watching the wreckage float by the shuttle. He hadn't said a word to anyone since he had summoned her and Garrus onboard the Kodiak, and the turian looked as if Shepard's…condition hadn't gone unnoticed either. Both were concerned for the ex-Marine, one out of love and the other out of camaraderie. They had worked with him the longest of the rest of the team, save Joker and Chakwas, and had stuck by him through thick and thin. They had defeated Saren and Sovereign together at the Citadel, after all.

But neither was willing to risk saying anything and inciting the wrong kind of response. If this was anything like the aftermath of Virmire, he might lash out at anyone nearby.

"_**Uh…gonna put us down in the starboard flight pod, Commander,"**_ came the shuttle pilot's voice over the intercom, sounding as nervous as the quarian and turian felt. _**"The port pod's all shot to hell. I'm just going to need a minute to get us around to it."**_

Shepard didn't reply, not in words or anything intended to be heard. Instead, he took a deep inhale, and began mouthing something, words to some silent prayer or a cadence call. He was obviously shaken up, and anything that could move Shepard like that obviously wasn't something they should take lightly.

The shuttle tilted, and the _SSV Einstein_ finally came into view, bringing Garrus and Tali's attention over to it. They both let out an inaudible, shocked response at the destruction and ruin leading to the ship. They had only seen a fraction of it so far on the flight over, but now that is was actually in their sight, the visage of the stranded behemoth seemed like the grimmest thing ever created.

The Kodiak finally slid into the starboard flight pod, coming down to rest on the deck. The airlock beside them opened up, and the landing pad slid sideways into it automatically, taking the ground team through to the hanger. Mass effect fields and main power were still online, obviously…

"Alright," Shepard said quietly, startling both Tali and Garrus. "Listen up. It's clear that the majority of the crew is dead or captured, but we have to look for survivors." He turned to glare at them levelly, frowning. "So watch your fire."

* * *

The hanger was deserted.

All that was left was a few fighters, wings folded and tucked into their maintenance racks, and some corpses on the deck. They were human crewmen, dressed in yellow jumpsuits with shoulder patches indicating that they were 'deck gang' as Shepard called them. They all had weapons of some kind, a few possessing Storm shotguns, one with a Hahne-Kedar MP51K Lightening sub-machine gun, but the rest simply had Kessler handguns.

Garrus checked the bodies for pulses, just in case, then shook his head as he rose. "Cut down by beam weapons. Non-coms. Never stood a chance."

Shepard didn't respond. He was simply staring at the Navy men, his eyes unseeing as they flicked from one man to the next. He stopped at an older one, probably in his mid forties.

"Fisk…" he muttered, leaning down and gently closing the man's blank eyes.

"You knew him?" asked Tali, a bit surprised.

Ken nodded, rising and hefting his shotgun again. "There's a reason I brought you both on board. Two of them, actually. The first was because you two are…you. Level-headed, stable, and not associated with Cerberus. No chance of you cutting someone down just because you didn't care."

He turned to face them fully now, and even with his visor strapped over his eyes, Tali could see the iron wall that had slammed down in his gaze. This wasn't his soldier face. This was something different.

"And secondly…you two have been with me from the beginning. From Saren. You're my best friends, probably some of the few I have left. We've shared things, all of us. It's time you learned about a few more things."

* * *

"_What have we got?"_

"_A few AR47s. Russian made, pretty old."_

_The smell of gunpowder. This room was cramped, underground and with only two ways out. He didn't like it, the compactness of the hab unit._

"_Anything else?" asked Harry, frowning as he looked over the scant arms they had scrounged up from the milita armory._

"_Some AA12 shotguns," replied Nate, the cloth bandage around his temple continuing to turn bloody._

"_Christ, those are fucking relics. Where'd we get them?"_

"_Old guns are cheap when they're made en mass. Besides, they can still throw lead around."_

"_Yeah…better than the handguns everyone else is stuck with."

* * *

_

They moved on, through the corridors. The first hatchway had been locked, probably by the crewmen trying in vain to keep the Collectors from getting any further inside. Instead, the aliens had simply blown a way in through the bulkhead. More dead crewmen littered the decks, particle beam wounds cratering their chests. Shepard moved among the bodies, examining them closely, kneeling to close the eyes of some every now and then, muttering their name and a short prayer. Garrus was concerned, for sure, but understood a soldier's need to say goodbye to friends.

Tali, however, was spooked. Ken had turned into a completely different person amidst this massacre, as though he had gotten shell-shock and was stumbling around in a daze. Mind you, he was still moving with the same efficiency and lethality of the Marine he used to be, but his behavior…she was put off, to say the least. This wasn't him, this wasn't Ken Shepard. There was something about this ship he wasn't telling them, something important.

"Ken…you said this ship got you off Mindoir?"

"Me and sixty-four survivors. Yeah."

"Where did you live after that?"

He paused, turning to look blankly at her, his face stone-solid and unrelenting, unwilling to show emotion.

"So…you figured it out?"

"It was here, wasn't it?" piped up Garrus, suddenly realizing where Tali was going with this. Before Shepard had the chance to reply, the quarian pushed her advantage, while she still had him admitting truths.

"You lived onboard the _SSV Einstein_...but it's a military vessel. After the survivors were rescued, you should have gone with them. But you didn't. And you were still too young to join the Alliance. So why were you allowed to stay?"

Shepard remained silent, staring straight at Tali, with that God-awful blank look on his face.

"Keelah! Say something already!"

Ken winced, finally a bit of emotion, and said "Alright, alright. Garrus. You remember Jeanette?"

"Your cousin from Horizon? What about her?"

Shepard turned, punching in the code to get through another hatch and into the mess hall, where the tables and benches had been used as ad-hoc cover for the squad of Marines who had tried to hold the room from the Collectors. Their bodies were strewn where they fell, their blood splattered over the tables and walls. Why hadn't the Collectors captured them instead? All out slaughter wasn't their standard operation, even though they were fully capable of it. Something was wrong here…

Ken made his way across the mess hall carefully, examining the Marines and only stooping once to recognize someone whose entire chest had been blown out by something large and sharp. Perhaps a Praetorian's claw?

"Jeanette…was with me on Mindoir." he finally said, pushing another hatch open to the next corridor.

* * *

"_Jeanie! Come on!"_

_Take the hand, Jeanie. Let's go, let's go. We need to get going. Jeanie, nowhere is safe, but you're going to die under that staircase if they find you. Yes, Jeanie. I know they're dead. They were my parents. But we have to go. Your father's going to find us, I swear._

"_Ken…are they gone?"_

_Gone? The slavers are everywhere. Burning the fields, taking people, torturing them, enslaving them, killing them. They're not here, but they're not gone._

"_Yeah, Jeanie. They're gone."

* * *

_

Garrus shouldered a hanging panel aside, one he couldn't duck as Shepard had done because of his bulky armor.

"So…you and your cousin escaped with sixty-something people from the attack on Mindoir…and came to live on this ship? I don't get it, what was the catch?"

Shepard finally stopped again, just outside a room marked 'Armory.'

"The captain of this ship's name…is Ronald Shepard. My dad's brother. My uncle, in other words."

* * *

"_Do we know when they got here?"_

_Stern. His voice is like a brick wall, hard and unyielding. His red hair catches the light._

"_No sir."_

_The corporal is nervous, rightly so. They're moving through the refugees now, the crew and marines are trying to ask questions. All he can do is follow the authority in the midst of all this chaos._

"_Do we know how many of them there were?"_

"_No sir."_

"_Do we know where they're headed?"_

"_No sir."_

_Captain Ronald Shepard paused in the hatchway from the cargo hold, his face screwed up in annoyance._

"_True or false, Corporal Farraday, if I were standing on the surface of Mindoir looking up into the sky with a pair of fucking binoculars in my hands, I'd be as informed as I am now."_

"_That would be…true, sir."_

_Ronald groaned, rubbing at his forehead._

"_The Naval Intelligence budget is –well- spent…Farraday, find me those fucking ships! I want to know where the hell those bastards are heading before even –they- know it!"

* * *

_

"So –that's- it…" Tali muttered as Shepard opened the door to the armory. "Your uncle was captain of the ship, and your legal guardian with your parents gone."

"And he had no other home than the _Einstein._" Shepard concluded, pausing at the Gunnery Chiefs sprawled across the worktables, guns and thermal clips scattered everywhere. "Damn, I was hoping there might be a few survivors hiding in here, at least…"

"So what, you lived here for two years?"

"Military life is just of mind over matter, Garrus. You know that. I learned through observation. I was a soldier long before I went to Earth for basic." Shepard moved to the door again, heading down the corridor once more, shotgun still at the ready. A Marine was slumped against the wall around the corner, and he checked him briefly before he moved one. "I spent two years with these people. A lot of them have moved on. Retired, transferred…killed. There's not many of them left, but I can still recognize those who are here...I hope."

* * *

"_Here, kid. What's that?"_

"…_it was my father's."_

"_Oh…sorry. Hey, y'know what? I think there's some ice cream in the galley._

"…_alright."

* * *

_

Tali could understand such a large change in living environment. After all, every quarian in the Migrant Fleet left on their Pilgrimage to explore the galaxy, so she also understood the sadness in leaving friends behind. But to come back and find them all butchered…

"So, what about your uncle?" Garrus asked, peering around a corner to check and make sure the room was clear before shutting it to block out the sight of what little remained of whoever had been in that supply closet. "Is he still alive?"

Shepard didn't answer for a few seconds, but when he did, his voice was full of gravel. "That's what we're going to find out now."

They moved through a few mores hallways and rooms, nearly all of them having at least one human corpse in them. The sailors weren't made to be fighters, not hand to hand, at least, and the Marines had been so vastly outnumbered and outgunned that they had practically been caught up in a one-sided slaughter. They came across point-defense stations that had been sabotaged as well, undoubtedly used to turn the _Einstein's_ guns on the fighters and interceptors outside.

Suddenly, however, the radio crackled, and all three of them paused, in the middle of a training room, as EDI's voice came over the line.

"_**Shepard, we have received a complication in the plan."**_

"_**What the AI is so generously trying –not- to tell you,"**_ came Joker's sarcastic tone as well _**"Is that we're on the verge of being discovered! We had to stay silent, but an Alliance cruiser, the **__**SSV New Delhi**__**, came out of the mass relay near Eden Prime and lit out straight for us! We're out of time!"**_

"Calm down, Joker," Shepard replied, turning towards the corridor they had come from. "We'll just get to the shuttle and-"

"_**No! Commander, you don't understand! The **__**New Delhi**__** isn't coming…it's already –here-! They deployed a team to the hull in environment suits and they've already cut through the hull! We had to get the Kodiak out of there and pull back to a safer distance!"**_

"And there's a reason why you –couldn't- tell me this –before- you decided to strand us here?" Kenneth Shepard's voice was very low, very growling almost as he mentally began to imagine a particular cripple being tortured by an eclor slowly settling onto his legs a little bit more at a time…

"_**Are you kidding? The Alliance has some of the best radio trackers in the galaxy! Hell, they know we're here –now- so there's no point in hiding anymore. We're swerving away from them, but it's only a matter of time before that cruiser opens fire!"**_

"Great! Anything –else- I should know?"

"_**Yes. I would suggest you assume a defensive posture. A team of elite Marines is about to breach your perimeter."**_ That would be EDI, of course, but at the word 'elite' she couldn't have realized just how wide Shepard's eyes had gotten.

"Aw…fuck!"

Tali frowned, tilting her head. "Ken?"

"Guys…run! Just run! Move it, let's go!"

At that exact moment, a frame charge detonated, slamming the closed door on the opposite end of the room off its hinges…and admitting a squad of N7 Marines into the training room, guns blazing.

* * *

(A/N: Never fear! The mission is not yet over, and the Collectors –will- make their appearance! Just wait until pt. 2!)


	11. Knock Knock, This is Your Past Calling 2

(A/N: Okay! It's official, You Don't Hear the Bullet has hit 100 reviews and we're well on the way to 20,000 hits! All thanks to you guys!

*throws confetti*

Alright! So, I'm still having a little bit of trouble figuring where to go with this. The numbers of 'yes' that I have gotten for the lemon has been conclusive enough, but I've also received some word from a well worded man (you know who you are) that perhaps a lemon isn't necessary. I'll puzzle over this, but you guys go ahead and enjoy the next chapter!)

* * *

**You Don't Hear the Bullet**

**Knock Knock, This is Your Past Calling Pt 2.**

Aboard the _SSV Einstein_

Exodus Cluster

Twenty Thousand Kilometers from Planet Zion

Tali didn't hesitate for a second, turning and fleeing along with Shepard back towards the corridor they had just emerged from. The frame charge was designed to channel all force into the doorway or wall it was attached to as shaped charges do, and the added bonus of the sound, surprise and flying pieces of metal were an added bonus to disorient opponents. Familiar with how these explosives worked, Shepard was already moving, pumping his arms to keep up momentum.

Garrus didn't fare so well. Not only the closest one to the hatch, he had also been directly in the explosion's cone, sending the force slamming into his shields, sending him stumbling backwards…and leaving him vulnerable. A burst of fire caught him in the torso, and while some of the rounds ricocheted off his armor, a few buried into his flesh, making him grunt in pain as they punched through, splattering blue blood onto the deck behind him.

Garrus fell, dropping his battle rifle and writhing like a fish out of water before he finally clambered back up, his armor ringing like a bell as more rounds bounced off it. Fortunately, the thick plates across the back of the suit kept most of the assault rifle shots from penetrating, though with the amount of accurately placed fire being rained down upon him, some slipped through, punching through his innards and sending more blue blood streaming out.

"GARRUS!" Shepard yelled, having ushered Tali through the hatch and gesturing frantically to the agent to hurry, arm outstretched to give further encouragement. Garrus continued to hobble forward, one hand covering a particularly bad belly wound, the other swinging to reach for Shepard's own hand.

Time seemed to hang for a moment as a sense of déjà vu came back to them both. How many times had they saved each other's life? What about Omega, when Shepard had blow Tarak's gunship out of the air with nothing but a grenade launcher? Or maybe the countless times in the chase after Saren, when Garrus provided sniper overwatch for Shepard's mad charges? Haestrom even, blowing a stealthed geth hunter's innards all over the place when it was about to slam a blow into Garrus from behind...

And then Shepard had Garrus' claw.

And time resumed.

"IN!" he yelled, half-throwing the turian through, covering him with his own recharged shields, flickering and beginning to fail. In those few critical seconds, the Marines had all streamed in, ten of them in the squad, and had begun pouring fire out from their Lancer assault rifles and Thunder light machine guns. 'Always a Rifleman' was still the Space Marine Corps saying, and these elites proved that by pounding away at Shepard's shields as he keyed the sliding hatch shut, blowing out the control panel with his shotgun.

The entire exchange had barely taken six seconds.

"That won't stop them," remarked Garrus weakly from the floor. "Won't they just place another charge?"

"Nah," grunted Ken as he hefted the rebel up on his shoulder. "Not when there's two other open corridors they can go down to hunt us down without unnecessarily wasting explosives."

Tali was leaned against the wall, still in a bit of shock from their close brush with what seemed to be near death. A full squad of N7 Marines with the drop on them…if not for EDI's warning and Ken's instincts, they'd all be dead by now. Those were some of the closest odds she'd ever run into in her life.

Finally, when she got over the mental image of ten flashing barrels firing accurate, high speed death, she straightened up and turned back, heaving Garrus' other arm over her own shoulder, ignoring the blue blood that splashed onto her suit.

"What I don't understand," she remarked as they hauled the turian along "Is why they're on the ship in the first place. A squad of N7 elite troopers?"

Shepard chuckled, though Tali didn't see what was so funny.

"Oh, believe me, they won't have dispatched a single squad for –this- mess…"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, remember all the casualties out in space? And lining the hallways? All Alliance personnel have subcutaneous transmitters to flash their location as far out as a few thousand kilometers into space. Seeing so many flatlines-"

"Get to the point, Shepard," grunted Garrus as he struggled to talk, his mandibles flared in pain. "I don't think I can lose blood as fast as I am right now for long. Less talking, more getting me outta here!"

"Can't do that," remarked Shepard, checking a corner with his Carnifex in one hand. "The _Normandy's_ being pursued by the _New Delhi_, remember? No evac for now."

Tali sighed, biting her lip as she realized that the ex-Spectre was right. So long as the Alliance vessel was out there, and the _Normandy_ was being tracked by their radio signals, no one could escape. They couldn't leave because the shuttle would be an obvious target, and the _Normandy_ couldn't leave the system without giving the _New Delhi_ a clear target other than a few radio signals.

"We'll get you to this ship's sick bay," Shepard continued, holding the gun up high to joggle Garrus a bit up his shoulder again. "But even that will be a temporary respite. If we don't get off this ship, the N7 platoon will corner us and finish us off."

"I'm sorry, did you just say –platoon-?!" Tali asked rhetorically, shocked at the numbers. That had to be at least fifty of the Alliance's best soldiers swarming the decks of the carrier looking for them, and with one team having made contact, they'd be moving in on their destination like a pack of varrens to an easy meal.

"What I don't understand," Garrus said, wheezing and coughing again. "Is why the hell they're here. I thought the Illusive Man blocked the distress signals?"

"From the beacon. But the manual call couldn't be stopped before it reached Eden Prime. From there, you just relay it through a comm buoy to Command. I'd bet the _New Delhi_ was sent double-quick."

"Fantastic, if you ask me," snarled Tali, grunting as she negotiated a tight corner with Garrus' bulk. "The one time Cerberus screws up, and we have to pay for it…I swear, ymina bosh'teti av agni…"

"Tali, don't turn off your translator so you can just curse! We're all so far in over our heads in shit that we can't see daylight!" snapped Ken, shouldering another hatch open with it refused to do so automatically.

"Oh, and I suppose –you're- going to be the one who finds out how to get us out of here?! We have fifty, count them –fifty- soldiers who are almost your equal coming after us with no escape route, and you're telling me that I can't get angry?!"

"Calm the hell down, I never said that! Jeez, is this your bitchy side, or do I have to work at it?"

"What?! Oh, you're –so- going to get it if we survive!"

* * *

_**"Butcher, this is Disciple. We've made contact, I repeat, we've made contact."**_

"_**Disciple, Butcher. We copy. Moving to your location."**_

"_**No good, Disciple. They've sealed the door behind them. We're moving to intercept on alternate route."**_

"_**Oxide here. You run into trouble?"**_

"_**Oxide, Disciple. Three tangos, one human, one qurian, one turian. We disabled the turian."**_

"_**Oxide, Avatar. According to specs, you should be able to take the door to your nine o'clock and move on to intercept."**_

"_**Avatar, Epsilon. Won't they head for the medbay?"**_

"_**Epsilon, Butcher. We've detected no transports. Agreed, most logical course is to patch their pal up til evac arrives."**_

"_**New Delhi**__** to Nova Team. Status report."**_

"_**New Delhi, Butcher. Three tangos, Captain. We've got them cornered, nowhere to run."**_

"_**Have they returned fire?"**_

"_**No, sir. But we're hemming them in. Soon they'll have to either face us or try and jump out the airlock. Similar odds of their survival."

* * *

**_

Captain Arnold Steele stroked his goatee thoughtfully as he cut the link to the Marines. Having taken the place of commander of the _New Delhi_ since Captain Eisennhorn had retired six years ago, Steele was a large man, a former Marine as well. Regrettably, he was a simple combat engineer, hung back and provided support while the shooting men did all the real fighting. Still, it was one of those reasons that made him a good choice as Captain, and he had accepted the position with honor.

Built around her two enormous main guns, the _SSV New Delhi_ had been the ship to take Jon Grissom to Arcturus, the current location of the Alliance's headquarters. After the First Contact War, she was refitted with mass effect guns to replace her old solid slug cannons, which moved much slower and fired depleted uranium slugs that couldn't make a dent in shields but could wreak hell on bare metal. Now a completely different ship, she sailed with the Seventh Fleet, based around the Citadel, and was therefore one of the closest vessels on call when Eden Prime received the distress call, as they were on patrol near Elysium.

Steele grit his teeth as he watched the flickerings of radio signals being tracked on their sensors. Their heat emissions tracker wasn't picking up anything, but the signals said otherwise, hinting that whoever had made their mysterious ghost ship had gotten their hands on the _SSV Normandy._ Was nothing sacred anymore? To go looting through a great vessel, one that had belonged to an honorable man, as if it were nothing more than a corpse on the street for someone to loot…disgraceful.

"Captain," called an ensign at one of the terminals. "We're still having trouble tracking the unknown vessel."

"What do we know about it?"

"Small, sir," said another soldier, typing away at his holographic keyboard and flickering his eyes from one display to the next unblinkingly, almost like a machine. "About one half the size of the _New Delhi_. That's really all we can get without any other kind of readings, captain."

"It'll have to do. Nova Team reported that they've run into three tangos on board the _Einstein_, and no other contacts. I'm going to have to say that whoever these people are, they didn't take out our carrier."

"Then…who did, sir?"

Steele sighed, running a hand over his goatee again as he narrowed his eyes. "I don't have a clue, ensign. And that scares the shit outta me."

* * *

He couldn't bring himself to do it. He just couldn't. But Garrus' life was slowly dripping out onto the deck, and the mission had to take priority over a stupid lovers' quarrel.

So, he finally said it.

"Tali, I'm gonna need you to get this lock for me."

He grit his teeth as she cocked her head slightly, obviously out of habit to indicate she was raising an eyebrow, and Ken was willing to bet that the quarian was wearing either a smirk on her face…or a cold glare behind that helmet.

"Fine," she said after a bit, obviously realizing that there were bigger things at stake than who won this stupid argument they were having. She moved forward, popping a panel next to the door to the infirmary.

"Y'know," muttered Garrus as Shepard gently set him on the floor, against the wall next to the door "No offense, but human technology always struck me…as a bit crude."

Shepard smiled a bit, realizing that Garrus was making idle conversation to distract himself from the pain he must be feeling. In all their haste to put distance between them and today's version of the Navy SEALs from the twenty-first century, he hadn't even gotten any medi-gel.

As Ken knelt, activating his omni-tool to administer the healing salve, he said "Yeah, why's that?"

Garrus gestured weakly, coughing again as he replied "It's blocky. Industrial. Square. Look at…all those mechs Hahne-Kadar makes. Square plates of armor, right?"

"That's because we don't really care to make things pretty at this point," Shepard remarked with a small grin as he cracked the medi-gel pouch, using the omni-tool to spray it in a fine mist over Garrus' visible wounds. "We're barely keeping up with you guys in weapons and computers. The only advantage we have is radios, and even then the salarians are close on us."

Garrus chuckled, wincing as he did so. "Nah. Salarains have been using the same comms for decades. You'll have left them in the dust long before they'll make another advance in communications."

Tali listened to the exchange quietly as she worked to bypass the sick bay doors, quietly connecting nodes on the circuit board. Human technology was a mish-mash of old and new, as the Alliance held a 'don't screw with what works' policy on all of their equipment. For example, they hadn't started making thermal clip weapons standard issue until about a year ago, wheras the rest of the galaxy had already started making some inroads towards converting their military. Now, they were everywhere, along with the clips to load into them.

As she worked, however, she began to think over what she and Ken had been arguing about. When you boiled it down past all the anger and panic over their situation…the reason was rather trivial. One could never give in to doubt or turn on their teammates needlessly, or they'd have already lost.

Garrus coughed again as Shepard finished up. "At least…at least I don't have to get any more plates patched into my face, right?"

"Couldn't hurt," remarked Shepard as he disengaged his omni-tool, smirking. "Hell, Garrus, you were always ugly. Slap some face paint on there, and no one'll know the difference."

"You little bastard. You still remember that?"

"It was less than a week ago, of course I do!"

Tali couldn't help but smile at the small patch of levity they were having in this dire situation. Here they were, being hunted by elite soldiers, outnumbered badly with no way to get out, and with one man down. Not a very good situation…

But she had to believe they would get out. Ken had somehow wriggled through everything else thrown at him before. Why not this one?

Her confidence in Shepard restored, Tali connected the final two nodes, watching as the hatch slid open.

"There we go," she remarked, picking up the panel and replacing it.

Shepard nodded, his mouth drawn tight and his expression wary as he replied "Thanks Tali." In that moment, the humorous atmosphere had evaporated into a tense, heavily pressurized awkward moment. After all, it had been their first fight, hadn't it? A stupid one, but still a fight nonetheless.

Garrus was pulled inside, the door shut behind them and the lock jammed, just in case the N7 had managed to find a way around that was shorter than Ken had expected. The stacks of medigel and synth-skin makers sat idling, unused for a long while. Obviously, the Collectors had slaughtered everyone too quickly for a proper resistance or triage to be set up.

Tali puzzled over the medical equipment before saying "The Collectors wanted to send a message, not capture more humans. That has to be it. Either that, or they have at least some form of emotion."

"Right," replied Shepard as he heaved the turian rebel onto the table. "So they know the concept of revenge. Either that, or they're just fucking with me."

* * *

Out in space, the _New Delhi_ chased after the _Normandy_, caught up in a game of cat and mouse. The _Normandy_ had better maneuverability and speed, but the cruiser behind it could tear it to pieces with its large mass effect guns the second they got a solid target. Neither could leave the system, either, so long as they had people on board the wrecked _Einstein._

But another guest was about to join the party. One that had been sitting back and waiting for the best time to not only disable both active vessels, but to obliterate the carrier and finally end the life of the man who had dared to stand before them time after time.

Without any warning whatsoever, the Collector ship suddenly appeared right in between the _Normandy_, the _New Delhi_, and the _Einstein_.


	12. Knock Knock, This is Your Past Calling 3

(A/N: this is hard, accepting help from the crowd. Not only, for shame, are you slacking a little in your reviews (something I could live with otherwise, I think), but you're also making me call into question the lemon issue once more! So, for now, enjoy this next chapter while I try and reconsider my reasons for writing/not writing the lemon chapter.)

* * *

**You Don't Hear the Bullet**

**Knock Knock, This is Your Past Calling Pt 3.**

"_Jeanette? Cousin, is that you?"_

_The woman cocked her head sarcastically, the cold, icy glare still on her face._

"_No, Ken. I'm a krogan in disguise. Don't blow my cover or else I'll eat you."_

"_Smartass," replied Shepard, limping forward with his arms spread wide, obviously expecting to embrace his family member._

_But instead, Jeanette simply pulled her arm back-_

_And brought a fist straight into Ken's nose.

* * *

_

Aboard the _Normandy II_

Exodus Cluster

Twenty-One Thousand Kilometers from Planet Zion

Alarms began blaring all over the _Normandy_, lights flashing and sirens whining. Miranda snapped her head up from her console, eyes wide before she narrowed them again.

"Dammit, what now?!" she snarled, standing and moving to the door of her quarters. The crew deck was mostly deserted, seeing how most of the crew was at their action stations. A few Cerberus commandos were all that was left, standing near the doors to the cargo bays with rifles in hand, apprehensive looks on their faces.

"Stand down," called the operative, holding a hand up to signal that they could leave their ad-hoc stations. "Status report."

Sergeant McKenzi snapped a crisp salute, his own armor white to indicate he had been a Cerberus stormtrooper before being assigned to the _Normandy_. "Ma'am, word from the bridge. The Collectors just arrived!"

"And why hasn't anyone reported this to me directly?" Miranda growled, eyes narrowing as she dismissed the man with a wave, spinning and turning to the elevator.

Upon reaching the combat deck, she saw that she wasn't alone in investigating the disturbance. The armory door slid open just as Miranda stepped forward, admitting Jacob onto the main deck. He snapped a crisp salute to her, which she returned with a nod.

"Ma'am. Can I assume you're here because you've heard?"

"The Collectors are here. Yes, I was wondering why no one had informed me the second it happened."

Jacob shrugged his muscular shoulders, obviously dismissing it in the same cool, calm military manner he kept around him all the time. "That's just it. I think it only –did- just happen."

"That's correct," came the voice of Yeoman Kelly Chambers, making both Cerberus agents turn to the redhead. She didn't bother with a salute, and no one really expected one from her. As the vital connection between crewmembers, the bridge and Shepard himself, Kelly held a higher social rank than she did one that could be worn on her shirt.

"What can you tell us?" asked Jacob, tilting his head a little and audibly cracking the vertebrae in his neck, making Kelly visibly wince.

"We just picked up another contact right in between us, the pursuing Alliance cruiser and the wrecked carrier. Like it just came out of FTL speed right among us. Readings confirm that it is indeed the Collector ship."

"That's impossible," said Miranda skeptically, crossing her arms over her chest. "No one can plot a stop that accurate. You'd have had to know where all three ships already were."

"Or," offered Jacob, his eyes narrowed in thought. "Maybe they anticipated based on the carrier's location."

Both women stared in surprise at the former Marine for a few seconds before Kelly said "If that's true…then-"

"The Collector's technology is further ahead of us then even we had anticipated," finished Miranda uneasily, making all three turn to the bridge, hoping that Joker's piloting skill would pull them through.

* * *

Out in space, the _New Delhi_, turning swiftly to bring its guns to bear, began to bring in a firing vector on it's size equivalent foe. However, even though the cruiser was roughly the same mass, it never really stood a chance against the Collector vessel.

The particle beam fired, slicing through the Alliance vessel's kinetic barriers and slicing through the starboard engine assembly like a knife through rice paper. The _New Delhi_ retaliated, the mass effect guns firing again and again, ejecting enormous spent heat sinks into space, still smoking and glowing red. The shells smacked into the yellow kinetic barriers, setting them aflare but doing little to weaken them. The Collector ship fired again, slicing through the main gun battery with its insidious, shrieking particle beam. The _New Delhi_ slowly began to crumble in on its, the nose and gun barrels tilting up a bit even as the engines powered to full, closing the distance between the wounded Alliance vessel and the Collector ship.

It struck at top speed, sending the Collector ship's barriers ablaze before finally punching through, the gun barrels vanishing in an explosion. The front of the craft began to disintegrate, but the engines propelled the rest of the hulk right into the port side of the enemy.

The _New Delhi_ detonated right on the side of the Collector ship, blowing out chunks of hybrid organic-synthetic hull out and enormous pieces of metal superstructure.

The advanced ship was left crippled as a result of the suicide run.

* * *

_He fell to the ground, grunting in surprise more than pain as his nose blossomed red with blood. Garrus and even Jack looked on with shock as the woman lunged forward, bringing a boot up into Shepard's jaw, slamming the ex-Spectre flat onto his back._

"_Shit," muttered Jack to the turian as Jeanette ditched her assault rifle, straddling Ken's waist and proceeding to continue driving her knuckles into the commander's face. "Dysfunctional family much?"_

"_There's gotta be some sort of reason. Family doesn't just assault each other like that," muttered Garrus, narrowing his eyes as he watched the scene. No way either he or the biotic were going to get involved just yet. One knew the problems surrounding family issues, and the other just wanted to see how this would end._

_Finally, however, Jeanette lifted her fist again…and let it hang there. Her shoulders shook, and her breath hitched as tears rolled down her cheeks._

"_You…jackass…"

* * *

_

Aboard the _Einstein_

Shepard had finally dozed off, sitting against the wall under the medi-gel storage unit and snoring softly. The rings under his eyes had even shrunk a bit, attesting to how much even just this little bit of a nap was helping him recover from the days he'd spent without sleep and on stim-packs instead. Tali watched him, just as she had for the time they'd spent hunting Saren, her eyes tracing over his scars. You could still see the glow of cybernetics through his cheeks. She wondered what it would be like to kiss him with those implants in his mouth, wondered what he'd taste like, feel like…

She looked over at Garrus, still sitting on the table while the synth-skin generator worked its programmed instruction into actions, slowly and gently patching up his flesh with dextro-amino friendly materials. He'd have to sit perfectly still…

Slowly, she turned back to Shepard, kneeling before him, reaching up and gently cupping his stubbled cheek. Ken snorted lightly in his sleep, causing her to flinch a bit, thinking herself caught in the act of her little experiment. Then, when he didn't move further, she let the tension ease away, moving a little closer to him, her hand reaching up to her helmet-

"_**Normandy**__** to shore party. Come in shore party."**_

She jumped again, luckily managing to put a little space between her and Ken when he also rose, eyes wide and searching.

"Y-…yeah Joker, what's up?"

"_**Shepard, it's Miranda."**_

"Oh, right. Sorry, Miranda. What's going on?"

Ken moved sluggishly, still waking up as he spoke to the ebon-haired bombshell, while Tali leaned up against another medical bed, feeling her irritation rising in her chest. Of all the worst timing in the known galaxy, that whore had to choose the –exact- moment when Tali had been-…had been about to-

What? What was she going to do?

Tali suddenly bit her lip, realizing she hadn't planned out her actions. A risky move, especially when it involved opening her suit.

Still, that conversation she'd had with the Operative had been…an eye-opener, for sure.

* * *

_Tali was happily chewing on the flavorful paste Mess Sergeant Gardener called 'turian oatmeal' (apparently the closest human-food he could find to compare to what amounted to sticky globs of dextro-amino based goop that Tali ate through a processor on her suit) when her eye caught a bit of movement on the edge of her vision. Miranda Lawson, tall, lean, with a smooth sculpted face and 'assets' in large proportion, stepped out of her office, apparently glancing around for something. Tali sometimes envied how the human woman's white uniform seemed to strain a little at the buttons, especially in all the right places. Not that Tali didn't have curves either compared to human women (in fact, to quarians she was a little bit busty) but when set alongside the biotic, Tali felt…inferior._

_Add that to the fire of animosity burning between them, and conflict was rolling down the hill, starting with one very specific person: a man named Ken Shepard._

_Tali had been on the __Normandy II_ _for only a day so far, and she could already sense the connection between Shepard and Lawson. She always seemed to watch him with those sharp, predatory blue eyes of hers, like he was a prize to be caught. In a way, he was, but the problem was that he looked back at her teasingly, jokingly. Tali knew Ken wasn't interested in Miranda more than as a platonic friend, but from the way Miranda watched Tali, she wasn't ready to give up._

_Miranda strode forward, an icy smile on her face as though she were a lion hunting a deer. Tali finished with the last of her 'oatmeal', shutting down the processor and standing, obviously seeing a conflict about to arise._

"_Miss vas Neema. Can I speak to you in my office, please?" said the human in the coldest of tones._

"_Sure. For now," answered Tali, already on to her game. She wasn't as naïve as some people thought, and could instantly tell the topic of their discussion._

_Miranda simply bit back a grimace, following Tali into her quarters before shutting the door and taking a seat at her terminal._

"_Take a seat. Please. We have something very important to think about here. And when I say important, I mean that it matters to everything. The mission included."_

_Tali continued standing, her glare at Miranda having no effect. Damned helmet._

"_Alright, don't be civil. Let's get right to it, shall we?" Miranda kept that annoyingly (and a little bit scary) smile on her lips, even though there was nothing humorous about the situation. "It's about Shepard. I know you and he have…history together-"_

"_Damn right. That's not going to change, so why don't you get to what's on your mind so I can leave that much faster?"_

_The Cerberus tilted her head, the smile slowly slipping off her face._

"_Leave him alone. I know he has feelings for you, but you're just a distraction. A fantasy, one he can never fulfill."_

"_I think you should leave that up to him and me. We decide what happens in our 'fantasy.'"_

_Tali made some air quotes around the word fantasy, like she'd seen Shepard and Engineer Donnelly doing when they were being sarcastic about something._

_Miranda stood in cold anger, blue energy beginning to surge around her body. Tali's hand slowly contracted into a fist, activating her omni-tool. Her arsenal of tech attacks sprang up on her faceplate, and she instantly went to 'incinerate,' readying it for activation._

"_It would have been better for everyone," snarled Miranda. "If you hadn't been on Freedom's Progress. You included. Because what do you think is going to happen eventually? Shepard's going to have needs you can't fulfill sooner or later, and all the affection in the world won't hold him to you forever. You'll see. You'll be heartbroken, he'll be sorry he had to leave you, and this entire mission will turn into one big emotional quagmire. So why don't you leave caring for him…to me? Because I don't think you have what he needs."

* * *

_

"Roger that," Shepard said, snapping Tali out of her reverie. "Be careful, Miranda."

"_**Roger that. Out."**_

Shepard turned, his face grim and suddenly seeming to have recovered his lost energy again.

"Garrus! How much time is left on that synthesizer?"

The turian looked back, grunting in pain as one of his new patches of skin tugged a little.

"A few more minutes. Why?"

"Collector ship showed up. Destroyed the _New Delhi._ Miranda and Jacob are each going to lead a team to explore it, but that means we have to get off this ship, now."

"How is –that- going to happen?" Tali objected, moving quickly from her leaning position to stand next to Ken. "We don't have a shuttle, and those marines are still closing on us."

Shepard grinned, wickedly, and the quarian suddenly felt her stomach bottom out in fear.

"You guys remember those fighters back in the hanger?"

* * *

(*grins* Three guesses as to what Shepard's plan is. See you all next time!)


	13. Knock Knock, This is Your Past Calling 4

(A/N: *slaps Autophage and arlakin88* Point taken, guys. The voting polls are now closed! The lemon will continue!

*waits for cheers*

Just not in this chapter.

*shields from flying tomatoes*

But never fear! We'll be getting off the _Einstein_ soon enough, and back to the _Normandy_ soon!)

* * *

**You Don't Hear the Bullet**

**Knock Knock, This is Your Past Calling Pt. 4**

"_Why?! Why'd you leave, Ken?!"_

_Shepard looked up, his face a collection of cuts, bruises and smudges of blood. His face was confused, and he spat out a globule of red blood before speaking, indicating he had cut his tongue._

"_What? What the hell are you talking about?"_

_Jeanette tried to punch him again, but it was an awkwardly thrown blow, and he caught her wrist easily with the element of surprise gone. She didn't fight his grasp, just continued crying._

"_Jeanie? What's going on?"_

"_You were dead! That's what's going on! It's what the Alliance told everyone! Gone! Dead! But you're here, so you –must- have gone somewhere! Why?! Why did you put me through all that?!"_

_He released her wrist, and she fell forward, her arms wrapping around Ken tightly, still sobbing into his chest._

"_Jeanie…I'm so sorry, Jeanie."

* * *

_

Aboard the Collector ship

Exodus Cluster

Twenty-One Thousand Kilometers from Planet Zion

The Kodiak drop shuttle edged up to the damaged vessel, aimed at a large hole from the destruction, it's doors opening to expose the people inside. The atmosphere inside all rushed out, the whoosh inaudible in the vacuum of space. Fortunately, all the people inside were wearing their rebreather masks.

First off was Miranda, her submachine gun up and scanning for targets. They only had so long before the Collectors would either get the ship running again or realized they had invaders on board, and she wanted to use that time wisely. Accompanying her were Grunt and Thane. Team two was composed of Jacob, Zaeed and Jack, more centered around biotics but still a powerful combination.

The two teams moved down the hall they were in, hearing the Kodiak power up its thrusters.

"_**Alright guys. Stay in contact, report every five minutes. If you drop into radio silence, I'll give you one hour before I assume the worst and leave. Copy?"**_

"Copy," replied Miranda and Jacob in sync, both currently checking each other's corners. The entire group was on edge, including those normally accustomed to battle or tension. Thane may have been the exception, as drell didn't show much emotion to begin with, and he was always stoic no matter what the situation.

Zaeed spun around, assault rifle up and at his shoulder, tracking something in the air.

"We're not alone…" he muttered, narrowing his eyes. Grunt came around as well, Claymore shotgun cocked and ready.

"You're right. But they're not behind us," said the krogan.

"Can't be too sure, mate," returned Massani. "Never seen anything like this before…"

The hallways up ahead of the group split in two, and Miranda gestured towards the right passageway, rewarded by Jacob's nod. They would separate here.

"_Normandy_, be advised, we've split into teams."

"_**Ack-…-edged. I'll relay -…-informa-…-Shepard's team. Keep at it, guys, out,"**_ came Joker's reply.

"Gonna be hard to keep in contact with them out there, Miranda," cautioned Jacob as his team gathered around him.

"Not for short-range. You keep to the edge of the hull as much as possible, look for damaged portions. I'm going to find a way deeper in."

"We can't stay in vacuum for long. I'll do the best I can, but we'll all have to get somewhere pressurized sooner or later."

* * *

**Aboard the **_**Einstein**_

"Butcher One Actual to _New Delhi_. _New Delhi_ come in. Repeat, _New Delhi_ come in. _New Delhi,_ respond. Captain Steele, are you there? This is Nova Team Actual."

"_**Butcher, Avatar. I can't raise the **__**New Delhi**__** on comms, Volker. It's spooky."**_

1st Lieutenant Fred Volker tried to fight down his own apprehension. It wasn't natural, an N7 Marine feeling fear. –They- were the ones meant to be feared, not the enemy. As leader of the platoon, it was his job to keep the men in order, and that meant keeping the brave face so they could all troop on.

"Vasquez," he called out to Gunnery Chief Lionel Vasquez, NCO of Butcher squad. Vasquez snapped around, not bothering to salute as he jogged over to Volker.

"Yessir?" he said, Lancer held uneasily in his hands.

"How much explosives do we have right now?"

"Six frame charges, sir."

Volker paused.

"Nova Team, this is Volker. Listen up everyone; we may have a situation here. We've lost contact with the _New Delhi_. Assume the worst. I am therefore labeling the three tangos we encountered as hostile. Shoot to kill, on sight. Repeat: shoot to kill with extreme prejudice."

* * *

"…no."

"But why not?!"

"We've never done something like –this- before, Ken!"

"Tali, you don't know how good it'll be until you try it!"

"I know you're going to get at least one of us killed!"

"May I interject here and say that your entire argument has just turned into one huge innuendo?"

"NO!"

"Just thought I'd ask."

Garrus shrugged at the squabbling couple, hobbling over to the human fighter once again, looking over the squarish craft interestingly. Having seating for a crew of four, the SF-109 was designed to attack an enemy craft with torpedoes, acting more as a conventional bomber than a real fighter. It was the interceptors' jobs to watch the fighters, peeling off to attack enemy small crafts of the same shape. The human vessel was boxy, like all their technology, with disproportionate, stubby wing flaps sticking out of the sides and a dorsal fin on top, giving it the appearance of some kind of fat fish. The cockpit bubble stretched like on large eye, allowing the entire crew a view of the outside.

It's ability to fly wasn't in doubt. Several of these had flown to great success against the geth fleet and Sovereign at the Citadel. The weapons were, although a bit crude, tremendously effective. The torpedoes were small nuclear explosives (small here being a comparative term only, being the same yield as the city-buster dropped on Hiroshima in Earth's Second World War more than two-hundred years ago) strapped onto a mass effect thruster. Not quite what the rest of the Council races used on their fighters, such as turian pulse cannons or asari mini-lasers, but humanity always had a bit of an attraction to large explosions. It made them somewhat relatable to the krogan, actually.

No, what was in question was the ability to fly it.

"Ken, how much time have you clocked in one of those?"

"Six-hundred hours. Give or take a few dozen." Shepard waved his hand a little bit, his face scrunched up as he tried to recall.

"I mean in an actual craft, not one of your holo-simulation games!"

Shepard raised an eyebrow, returning his gaze back to Tali's helmet. It was rather interesting how he also cocked his head to the side when he did so, just the same as she did to indicate she was making such a gesture. It must have become a habit to him, Garrus decided.

"Tali, it's not a video game, it's an Alliance training program."

"I don't care! It's not real, and you have –no- hands on experience!"

"How different could it be from the videos? Everything's in the same place, isn't it?"

"But you haven't actually developed a physical –feel- for it, have you?"

"Innuendo again," Garrus cut in, and Shepard could have sworn the damn turian was smirking…save for the fact that he had no lips.

"Garrus…shut up, please." Ken bit at him.

"Ken, back to me. Tell me something, you want to find out what it's like being dead –again?-"

Tali had her hands on her hips now, her head tilted as if to dare Shepard to continue arguing. In reponse, he put his hands up in exasperation.

"Alright, fine! Stay here. But Garrus and I are leaving. Right Garrus?"

"Tali, I think I'd rather go with the crazy-indestructible-son-of-a-bitch than turn back and risk our chances with the almost-as-indestructible elite Marines."

Shepard clapped his hands, smirking.

"Two to one! I win!"

He grinned, moving over and smacking a button on the fighter's berth console, making the cockpit pop its seal and slowly slide open. Garrus turned, trying to clumsily heft himself up into the craft before Shepard stepped over, a hand gently on his back to steady the turian. Ken fortunately knew that Garrus' pride wasn't too big that he would turn away help.

Finally, the former agent flopped into the pilot's chair, groaning as he shifted over to sit in the bombardier's seat. Shepard hopped up onto the nose, glancing back as Tali moved to climb in as well.

"Oh, Tali, you can't get in yet. I need someone to get this baby to the airlock and prepare it to launch. You're the only one with zero-atmosphere gear right now, so that means you."

Tali groaned at this new twist of events.

"What fresh hell is this? Why can't we just call the shuttle?"

Ken pointed back at the locked hatch once more, a barrier that would slow the Marines for mere seconds.

"You wanna give away our location to them again? Once they find the sickbay, we'll have minutes before they've searched every other viable hiding place than this one, assuming they haven't found us by now. A radio signal would be like setting off a flare. It –was- like setting off a flare, since Miranda called, and then Joker."

"Fine! Fine, I get it," Tali growled, her hands thrown up in surrender as she turned, moving to the berthing control panel. "Now, how do I work this thing?"

"It's simple. Press the flashing green button, the one right there in the corner. Once the berthing clamps have released us, just hit the yellow button. Then go to the control room and get us to one of the launch tubes. You should be able to do that by yourself easily enough."

And with that, he was gone, slipping inside the fighter like a snake down a burrow. With a soft sigh, her hand moved to the button, pressing the solid stud to activate the mechanical contraption. The reason why some Alliance vessels preferred direct connection mechanics over holographic keypads and retracting doors was the same as why they preferred solid slugs sometimes and nuclear ordnance; what had been proven to work would work, no matter what.

The berthing rack slid open, allowing the fighter to transfer to the launch assembly, slowly being pulled towards the launch tube.

She moved to the control room, suspended above the hanger where whoever was operating it could see the entire situation. There were several holes punched in the glass, and a human corpse missing its head. Tali grunted, moving the unfortunate victim aside and gaining access to the controls.

"Alright…this seems simple enough…" she muttered, her hands experimentally pressing buttons. With one push, she opened up the inner airlock for the launch tube Shepard's craft was waiting to slip into, and she pressed a green arrow above that button to slide it in.

"Okay, this one should-"

Just as her hand was about to press the button for the external airlock, however, something detonated down below. Something that sounded frighteningly familiar.

The hatch to the hanger deck was blown off its hinges, admitting two Alliance Marines, their red sleeves depicting that they were indeed part of the N7 platoon. One of them began yelling, and Tali knew they were reporting their location to the rest.

They were out of time.

"Shepard!" she yelled, knowing that keeping radio silence was no longer practical. "Shepard! They're here! You need to go, now!"

"_Tali, no! You gotta to get out here! I'm coming back to get you!"_

"No, forget that! I'm opening the outer airlock now, but that won't stop them! They've got environment gear! Just get Garrus to the _Normandy_ and help him! I'll be fine!"

She could hear the panic in her own voice as she hurriedly began overriding safety warnings, shutting down alerts that the inner airlock was still open and the hatch to the rest of the ship was as well.

_Warning: environmental breach imminent! Do you wish to continue?_

"Yes, you little bosh'tet!" she finally cried out, selecting the 'yes' button one final time.

"_Tali, stand down! Keep them distracted, pretend to surrender, anything to delay them! I'm not leaving you!"_

"Ken, if I don't do this, all of us are going to die, as opposed to one of us dying! Dammit, you think I –want- this?! I'm saving you, so just shut up and let me do this before I change my mind!"

"_Tali don't-!"_

With a muffled –thump-, the outer airlock on the launch tube opened, venting the atmosphere in the hanger and a full quarter of the _Einstein's_ corridors. The howling, whistling wind only lasted for a few seconds, giving Tali more than enough time to grab onto something, withstanding the gale…and press the 'Launch' button.

Leaving her alone, as Shepard's fighter was thrown from the carrier, with some of the best soldiers in the Alliance ready to tear her apart.

* * *

(Oooooh, aaaaah, what will he think of next?! Tune in for the grand finale of the _Einstein_ chapter soon, and keep up the reviews!)


	14. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT 42410

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT 4/24/10

To my underserved fanbase: as many of you have seen, You Don't Hear the Bullet has come to a stop. While many of you are probably thinking I've abandoned it, I can fortunately say that I have not. Real life is coming around to kick me in the ass, including me getting laid off from my job, health insurance issues and large college assignments coming up. I apologize for the lack of activity, but I'm not done with this fic yet. I have far too many ideas for it. I -will- return, and I thank you for your patience.

~Sincerely, Makori


End file.
